Peace Programs

David Pottie, Ph.D., Associate Director

David Pottie has worked on election and democracy projects for The Carter Center since 2002 in more than a dozen countries in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.  Dr. Pottie was born in Ottawa, Canada, and he received his doctorate in political science from York University in Toronto.

Prior to joining the Center, he lived in South Africa for seven years, where he completed research for his doctoral dissertation on housing for the poor.  He was a faculty member at Rhodes University and in 1999 he joined the Electoral Institute of Southern Africa, a non-governmental organization based in Johannesburg, where he became the head of research.  He has served on the editorial board of Southern Africa Report and the Journal of African Elections and has published work on African politics, democracy, and development issues.

Sarah K. Johnson, Assistant Director

Sarah Johnson is assistant director of the Democracy Program, where she helps implement democracy strengthening programs around the world, including in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and other regions. In previous roles, she designed, implemented, and managed democracy and governance programming in Morocco and the Palestinian Territories, and has professional experience working on political party building, communications, women's political participation, and public opinion research across the MENA region, Europe, and the United States.

Prior to joining the Center, Sarah served as a resident country director for the Middle East/North Africa division of the International Republican Institute and was a senior analyst for Greenberg Quinlin Rosner. She is an expert on political outreach and survey research. Ms. Johnson holds a master of science degree in foreign service from Georgetown University and a master's degree in European sciences from the Humboldt and Frei Universities in Berlin, Germany.

Avery Davis-Roberts, Senior Program Associate

Avery Davis-Roberts joined The Carter Center in 2003. She currently manages the Center's Democratic Election Standards Project, which seeks to develop the criteria by which observers assess a democratic process. She has also worked on the Center's collaborative effort with the National Democratic Institute and the U.N. Electoral Assistance Division on principles for international election observation. She has worked on Carter Center election observation missions in Asia, Africa, South America, and the Middle East.  Before joining the Center, Avery worked as a research consultant in London. Avery gained a joint honors bachelor's degree in Arabic and law in 2001 and a master of laws degree (LL.M.) in international human rights law, both from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

Tynesha Green, Program Assistant

Tynesha Green has been the Democracy Program's program assistant since 1997 and provides logistical and administrative support to the program and its election missions. She has served on Carter Center missions to Nigeria, East Timor, Indonesia, Mozambique, Guyana, Zambia, the DRC, and Kenya.

She attended the University of California at Riverside, where she majored in economics with a minor in administrative studies. Ms. Green previously worked at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation in the asset disposition department.