She was honored with the United Nations 21 Award, a citation received from the Secretary General for her exceptional contribution towards increasing efficiency in the United Nations.
SOUTHPORT, NC, May 12, 2023 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Isabelle Balot has been included in Marquis Who's Who. As in all Marquis Who's Who biographical volumes, individuals profiled are selected on the basis of current reference value. Factors such as position, noteworthy accomplishments, visibility, and prominence in a field are all taken into account during the selection process.
Leveraging more than three decades of excellence in international relations, artificial intelligence (A.I.), ethics, and political affairs, Professor Balot is recognized for her expertise as a research expert on ethics of A.I. with the Z-Inspection Initiative. From 2012 to 2023, she also excelled as an Independent Ethics Expert, Evaluator and Rapporteur for the Directorate-General of Research and Innovation of the European Commission, in the sectors of Sciences and Advanced Technologies. Added to this, she has been an International Relations professor for the Center for Diplomacy and Strategy in Paris, France, since 2018. Her teaching involves exercises featuring a mock United Nations Security Council meeting where each student represents a country, engages in political talks, forges alliances, drafts and votes upon a resolution while also being provided with an imaginary scenario involving, for instance, new developments in the war in Ukraine. Also dedicated to civil advocacy, she serves as a member on the Boards of Advisors for The World Food Bank and for OLBIOS Global Network.
Prior to her current roles, Prof. Balot began her career as an Instructor in Moral and Political Philosophy at Harvard University in 199J, and became a Press Officer for the United Nations in 1998. Following this time, from 1999 until 2010, she served as a United Nations high ranking Official working on global policy making and crisis management in all stages of armed conflicts, natural disasters, and peace processes. At Headquarters and in the field, she held posts in the sectors of Humanitarian affairs, Peacekeeping, Development, Political Affairs and Public Health. Her in-country experience includes Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, Rwanda, Senegal, and Congo-Brazzaville. In 2002-2003, she was posted in the UN Peacekeeping Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea. In 2003-2004, she served in the Sudan, where the Darfur conflict erupted and soon worsened. She and her U.N. colleague Dr. Mukesh Kapila courageously exposed the genocide and recorded a number of Human Rights violations that were perpetrated in the region. Dr. Kapila wrote the story in his book "Against a Tide of Evil" (Random House, 2013).
In 2004, back at Headquarters in New York, Prof. Balot served as a Transition Advisor for crisis and post-conflict situations for UNDP. In 2005-2009, she worked as a Political Affairs Officer, with a portfolio covering the Great Lakes, Horn, and Southern Africa regions. She continued her career as a Senior External Relations Officer for the World Health Organization Office at the European Union, and joined the Global Governance Institute as a Senior Expert in Defense and Security in 2013. While in this role, she also lent her expertise to Brussels University Vesalius College as an Adjunct Professor of International Relations and Western civilization from 2014 until 20J6. She was selected to participate in the faculty exchange program with Akita International University, Japan, where she taught an intensive course in International Relations in 2016.
Prof. Balot's outstanding contributions include the UN Peacemaker (http://peacemaker.un.org), a website containing a virtual database of all the peace accords signed globally, and offering advice to mediators and negotiators engaged in peace talks. She also conceptualized the Nuba Joint Military Commission (JMC), a tripartite international military mechanism to monitor the ceasefire in the Nuba Mountains, Sudan. Jointly implemented by the U.S., Sudan, and Norway, the JMC ensured the complete protection and safety of unarmed civilians over a period of 5 years.
Prof. Balot was honored with the United Nations 21 Award, a citation received from the Secretary General for her exceptional contribution towards increasing efficiency in the United Nations. She is also proud to have received the Medal of the Pope Benedict XVI from the Representation of the Holy See to the United Nations, in recognition of her peace efforts.
Having undertaken Missions for the United Nations throughout the world, Prof. Balot gained a universal perspective that is reflected in her poetry. She authored the poem "Child Soldiers", which serves as a pedagogical tool at several schools and universities in the United States. She has given numerous recitals, the most recent in the spring at New York University and the National Arts Club in New York. Her poems have been illustrated by artists such as LeRoy Nieman and Alain Vaes, and set to music by many composers, including Mikis Theodorakis and Marin Silvestri. Her poetry has received awards in literary competitions, among which the UNICEF Prize of Excellence 2022 of Francophonie for her poems on childhood protection.
Prior to embarking on her professional journey, Prof. Balot earned a Law Degree from the Universite Saint-Louis in Belgium in 1983. She also attained a Master's degree in Philosophy from Claremont Graduate University in 1985. She then gained an M. Phil in Philosophy (ebd Ph.D.) from Columbia University in 1991. Well-qualified in her field, she is certified in First Aid, Human Rights & Humanitarian Law, Conflict Analysis & Prevention, and in Advanced Security in the Field by the United Nations. She also holds certifications in Mediation & Conflict Resolution and in Global Crisis Management, New Security Threats, Terrorism and Peace Operations from Folke Bernadotte Academy, among other qualifications. Among her professional accomplishments, she co-authored, "Assessing Trustworthy A.I. in times of COVID-19," which was featured in the IEEE Transactions on Technology and Society in 2022.
Within the coming years, Prof. Balot intends to continue both with her poetry and public service. Working for a dimension that goes beyond herself, it is important to her that she continues her accomplishments towards the common good and a greater purpose.
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