About Swanee Hunt
Swanee Hunt directs the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, where she also teaches courses on bringing women into formal and informal peace processes.
President of Hunt Alternatives Fund, she also chairs The Initiative for Inclusive Security (including the Women Waging Peace Network), which advocates for the full participation of all stakeholders, particularly women, in conflict prevention and resolution. She has conducted trainings for women all over the world, including 70 of the highest-ranking women in post-war Iraq and 130 women leaders in Sudan.
Prior to her appointment as US Ambassador to Austria (1993-1997), she chaired and co-chaired mayoral and gubernatorial initiatives dealing with mental health, homelessness and affordable housing, and families services in Colorado. She was a key founder of the Women's Foundation of Colorado. Ambassador Hunt is active in Democratic politics and has supported hundreds of nonprofit organizations through her private foundation. She is a widely published columnist and has authored two books: the award-winning This Was Not Our War: Bosnian Women Reclaiming the Peace and a memoir, Half-Life of a Zealot. Hunt is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and serves on the boards of Crisis Group and USA for UNHCR.
Raised in Dallas, Texas, Hunt made her mark as a civic leader and philanthropist in her adopted city of Denver, where for two decades she led community efforts on social justice issues such as public education, affordable housing, and mental health services for two mayors and the governor of Colorado.
A photographer, she has had more than a dozen one-woman shows in five countries. Her musical composition, “The Witness Cantata” has been performed in six cities. Hunt speaks frequently to conferences, and makes numerous radio and T.V. appearances annually. Hunt holds a BA in philosophy, two master's degrees (in psychology and religion), and a doctorate in theology. She is married to symphony conductor Charles Ansbacher. They have three children.