Dr. Eric Lepp is an Assistant Professor in Peace and Conflict Studies at Conrad Grebel University College, University of Waterloo (Canada). He received his PhD in Humanitarianism and Conflict Response from the University of Manchester (UK) and holds an MA in International Peace Studies from the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame (USA).

His research is broadly interdisciplinary - connecting peace studies with urban sociology, macro social work, resistance studies and political science. In his research he explores spaces of contact and the everyday construction of community that includes the ‘other’ in conflict-affected and divided societies. While grounded in critical and qualitative scholarship, his work orients itself toward practice, engaging with activists, cultural practitioners, educators, and civil society actors. He is particularly interested in counter-cultural, resistant, and unexpected spaces - such as sport, art, and popular culture - where peace is enacted and imagined beyond formal institutions and elite processes.

A core strand of his current work examines graffiti and other forms of public visual expression as mechanisms of local voice in peacebuilding. Through the mapping of where and when graffiti appears, he analyzes how communities narrate conflict, claim space, and articulate political belonging outside institutional channels. This approach foregrounds everyday, place-based knowledge and offers insights for those working at the intersection of peacebuilding, urban space, and cultural intervention.

His research has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals including Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, Third World Quarterly, Journal of Peacebuilding and Development, Peace and Change, Journal of Intercultural Studies, and Qualitative Research. He is also committed to public scholarship, and his work has appeared multiple times in The Conversation, translating academic research into accessible analysis for wider public and policy-facing audiences.

Eric has been in supported in his work by external fellowships and grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the International Centre for Nonviolent Conflict. He was an Honorary Research Fellow at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute at the University of Manchester (2019–2021), where he previously served as Senior Tutor in Humanitarian Studies, and he held a Curriculum Fellowship (2020–2021) with the International Centre for Nonviolent Conflict in Washington, DC.