Staff

Jerry Fowler

President

Jerry Fowler leads the Save Darfur Coalition and its staff of 30 professional organizers, policy advisors and communications specialists. Fowler coordinates joint Darfur advocacy efforts among the coalition’s more than 180 member organizations and directs communications with more than one million Darfur activists, more than one thousand community coalitions, and joint efforts within a strong global movement in 50 different countries.

Mr. Fowler is recognized as an authority on the problem of responding to genocide and related crimes against humanity. Before coming to the Save Darfur Coalition, he was the founding director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Committee on Conscience. He has taught law at George Washington University, George Mason University, and American University. He also served for four years as an officer in the United States Army.

Mr. Fowler's publications include "Out of that Darkness: Preventing Genocide in the 21st Century," in Century of Genocide: Eyewitness Accounts and Critical Views (Routledge, 2004). He also directed the short film A Good Man in Hell: General Romeo Dallaire and the Rwanda Genocide.

Suzie Armstrong

Senior Director of Development

Suzie Armstrong leads the Save Darfur Coalition's efforts to increase its impact by building a broad and diverse base of supporters, including individual donors and foundations.

Armstrong brings more than 15 years of experience in development and program management, most recently as the vice president of the Interfaith Alliance, where she served as chief of staff and managed the day-to-day operations of a national organization dedicated to protecting religious freedom and the separation of church and state. She draws additional experience from her tenure with non-profit organizations including Democrats 2000, Fifty plus One, Catholics for a Free Choice and Equal Justice Works. She holds a B.A. in government and English from The College of William & Mary and a Master of Arts degree in organizational sciences with a concentration in organizational management from George Washington University. Among other volunteer activities, she currently serves on the board of directors of Mentoring Today in Washington, D.C.

Andrea Clarke

Senior Director of Communications

Andrea Clarke leads the Save Darfur Coalition’s efforts to coordinate and implement media coverage and organizational branding to support campaign advocacy objectives.

Previous to joining the Save Darfur Coalition, Clarke established the media relations strategy for International Relief and Development, working specifically on humanitarian assistance programs in Iraq and Afghanistan. Clarke brings a decade of experience in television journalism to her role.  As a television news reporter based in Australia, Clarke filed stories from across the Asia-Pacific region including Hong Kong and Cambodia before moving to Washington D.C. in early 2004 to cover the presidential election. She holds a B.A. degree in journalism from Bond University and an M.A. degree in international strategic studies from Deakin University in Australia.

Robert Lawrence

Director of Policy and Government Relations

Robert B. Lawrence assists with policy development for the coalition and holds primary responsibility for working directly with the United States Congress, the White House, the National Security Council, and the Department of State on the coalition’s behalf.  

Lawrence has worked as a professional staff member for the House International Relations Committee, the House Democracy Assistance Commission, and the House Rules Committee, and served as foreign policy advisor to U.S. Representative David Dreier. Lawrence also has expertise in African affairs, having served as deputy director, Africa for the International Republican Institute, a non-governmental organization which promotes democracy and good governance worldwide.  He holds a graduate degree from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and an undergraduate degree in international affairs from The George Washington University.

Mark Lotwis

Senior Director of Campaign Advocacy

As a member of the senior management team, Mark Lotwis works to formulate the Save Darfur Coalition's short and long-term advocacy strategy and supervises the organization's advocacy programs, campaigns, movement building, coalition relations, events and outreach.

Most recently, Mark served as Executive Director of 21^st Century Democrats from 2007 to 2008, as a partner at two leading Democratic media consulting firms, MacWilliams Robinson & Partners and Strother Duffy Strother, from 1998 to 2006, and as Chief of Staff to U.S. Representative Ted Strickland (D-OH), now Governor of Ohio, in 1997 to 1998. 

During the 1994 and 1996 election cycles, Mark served as the Western Field Director and Campaign Planning Director (respectively) at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.  Earlier, Mark managed the successful re-election campaign of U.S. Representative Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and state Senator John Girgenti (D-NJ).  Mark also served as a pollster at two leading polling firms and was the Assistant Director of the Campaign Management Institute at American University in the late 1980's.  Mark began his career in public service when he was elected Chair of the Board of Directors of the New Jersey Public Interest Research Group in 1983. 

Mark serves on the Board of Directors of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies and received his Ph.D. in political science from The American University in 1993.  He received a B.S. in human ecology and political science magna cum laude from Ramapo College of New Jersey in 1983. 

Mark resides in Georgetown with his wife Lisa M. Konwinski who currently serves as Deputy Director for Legislative Affairs for President Barack Obama.  He is an avid photographer, cyclist and outdoorsman.

Amir Osman

Senior Director of Policy and Government Relations

Amir Osman leads the design and implementation of the coalition's international policy, advocacy and outreach to foreign governments, regional and international institutes, and non-governmental organizations.

Osman joined the coalition in July 2006 after working for Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies as Sudan Programme Officer. Before Cairo Institute, Osman worked on several research projects with the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies Program (FMRS) at the American University in Cairo (AUC) as a researcher and co-authored a published paper entitled "Expectations and Experiences of Resettlement: Sudanese Refugees Perspectives on their Journey to Australia, Canada and the United States."  He also taught at the Cairo Community Interpreters Project (CCIP) at AUC.

Osman received refugee studies, international human rights law, and community interpretation diplomas from the American University in Cairo. He also has a B.S. degree in physics from the University of Khartoum in Sudan.