Community

Randi Aho is Program Manager at the Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School. Prior to joining the Institute, Ms. Aho was a program coordinator with the Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability and Indigenous Peoples’ Rights Programs at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. She holds a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs, with a concentration in human rights and international conflict resolution. As a graduate student her research focused on post-conflict reconciliation mechanisms and reparations for victims of sexual violence. She received her B.A. in Global Studies from the University of Minnesota.

Paige Arthur, Ph.D., is the founder and principal of Public Action Research. An author, editor, researcher, and consultant with more than 12 years' experience in international affairs, Paige has expertise in the fields of human rights, peacebuilding, and democratic governance--with a special interest in identity politics, ethnic conflict, and decolonization. Her most recent work has dealt with how to improve the impact of nonprofit work in all of these fields.

Michelle Bellino is an Assistant Professor of Educational Studies at University of Michigan’s School of Education. Her research centers on the intersection of education, historical injustice, and youth civic engagement in the aftermath of identity-based violence. She is interested in the role of the educational sector as a mechanism of transitional justice, notably for younger generations who inherit legacies of conflict and division.

Co-Founder, Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability

Veronika Burget is the co-founder and former Director of the Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights. She has broad experience in historical dialogue, transitional justice, and democracy promotion. She has worked as a technical advisor for the German development agency (GIZ) in Ramallah, focusing on capacity building of civil society organizations in the West Bank. Moreover, she was the Middle East Regional Coordinator for the Institute for Historical Justice and Reconciliation (The Hague), coordinating history and reconciliation projects in the region. Prior to her work in the Middle East, Veronika was Project Manager with the Berlin Office of the Robert Bosch Stiftung, overseeing the foundation's history and reconciliation projects and media development programs in the Balkans. Veronika holds a Master’s Degree in History from the University of Oxford (UK).

Mary Marshall Clark is Director of the Columbia Center for Oral History and co-founder and director of Columbia’s Oral History Master of Arts (OHMA) degree program, prior to which she was an oral historian and filmmaker at the New York Times. Mary Marshall has been involved in the oral history movement since 1991, and was president of the Oral History Association in 2001-2002. Her workshop provided fellows with an introduction to oral history theories and practices and their implications for historical dialogue and accountability.

Detiger is the founder of Philantropia-an independent consultancy specialized in international fundraising and philanthropy. He has raised over $100 million in the non-profit field for numerous international projects from a wide variety of government agencies, foundations, and institutions. This professional experience gives him a wealth of first-hand knowledge and expertise on what it takes to successfully raise funds. For example, in April 2010, Detiger led a successful training on Fundraising from US Foundations in the Netherlands. Over the years, Detiger has lent his fundraising expertise to many international human rights organizations including UNICEF, The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ), and Social Accountability International.

Detiger has been a strong supporter of the Human Rights Advocates Program and the Alliance for Historical Dialogue and Accountability. He leads a six-session workshop to teach them about fundraising. He also works to fine-tune their organizations’ fundraising plans and grant proposals, many of which the Advocates submit to donors while still in New York for the duration of HRAP.

Reflecting on a workshop with HRAP, Detiger spoke fondly of the participants saying, “Their passion for their work and strengthening human rights was consistently apparent during class discussion. There is no doubt that the Human Rights Advocates Program provides a fantastic opportunity for participants—especially the valuable networking meetings with prospective donor organizations based in the United States. At the same time, I learned a great deal from the advocates about human rights issues in the countries where they work. I’m confident that after four months in New York the advocates will have an even greater impact once back home.”

Silvia Fernandez is a Program Director at the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience. In this capacity, Ms. Fernandez oversees the Coalition’s Project Support Fund, intended to provide holistic support to member sites, combining financial support, methodological resources, advocacy and promotion, and manages the European and Latin-American Sites of Conscience networks. A seasoned program manager, Ms. Fernandez has led the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of numerous educational human rights and social justice programs around the world. Within the programs and tools that Ms. Fernandez assists to develop, she is most interested in the use of media, art and culture to shape public perception and effect positive social change. Ms. Fernandez holds a MA in International Education with an emphasis on Human Rights and International Development Education from New York University (USA) and a BS (Social Sciences) in Politics and International Relations from University of Southampton (United Kingdom).

Eduardo González is a Peruvian sociologist, with an M.A. degree from the New School for Social Research (New York) and from the Catholic University of Peru (Lima). At ICTJ, he is the director of the Truth and Memory program, providing advice to countries on truth commissions, declassification of archives, memorialization activities, museums, and other instruments. He has provided technical and strategic support to truth-seeking initiatives in places as diverse as East Timor, Morocco, Liberia, Canada, and the Western Balkans. Before joining ICTJ, he helped organize and carry out the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission, where he worked as the director of public hearings and victim protection, and later as an editor of the commission's final report. Previously, he worked as an advocate for the establishment of the International Criminal Court.

Cathlin Goulding is a doctoral student in Curriculum and Teaching at Teachers College, Columbia University. She previously taught English and poetry at Newark Memorial High School, a public school in the East San Francisco Bay Area. Currently, she is researching efforts to teach about periods of heightened national security through place-based education. She lives in Brooklyn.

Dr. Pamela Graham is director of the Center for Human Rights Documentation and Research at Columbia University. In her workshop with the fellows, she described the Center’s work archiving the materials of human rights organizations around the world. She discussed how archiving can become an effective tool for advocacy and coalition-building, and showed the fellows some of the archiving projects the Center is currently working on, and how it is relevant to the fellows’ areas of work.

Refik Hodzic joined ICTJ as director of communications in March 2011. For almost two decades, Hodzic has worked in transitional justice as a journalist, filmmaker, and expert in public information and outreach campaigns for international and national courts seeking justice for war crimes. He has focused on post-war justice and media primarily in the former Yugoslavia, Lebanon, and Timor-Leste.

Zeke Johnson is the Director of Amnesty International USA's Security with Human Rights Campaign. He advocates for effective US security policies that comply with international law. His areas of expertise include drones, lethal force, torture and Guantanamo, where he has served as both a 9/11 commission observer and organizer for the largest national protests opposing the prison. He presented a workshop with the AHDA fellows on organizing effective human rights campaigns.

Virginie Ladisch leads ICTJ’s work on children and transitional justice as well as the country program in Cyprus. From the time she joined ICTJ in 2006 until 2009, Virginie worked as part of the Reparations program, and with the Canada and Turkey country programs. Prior to joining ICTJ, Virginie conducted research on reconciliation in Cyprus, was the project coordinator at the Crimes of War Education Project, and served as an election monitor in Guatemala. Virginie holds an M.A. in International Affairs from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University and a B.A. in Political Science from Haverford College.

Karen Murphy is the Director of International Programs for Facing History and Ourselves. Major projects include the coordination of international fellows' project and program related work for England, Northern Ireland, Rwanda, Colombia, the Czech Republic and South Africa, in addition to outreach for future projects, project development, research and writing, all particularly focused on transitional justice issues (Rwanda, South Africa, Northern Ireland, US, Germany are the major case studies). Her workshop explored some of the educational approaches and techniques Facing History employs in its work in post-conflict societies.

Valerie Paley is the N-YHS Historian and Vice President for Scholarly Programs at the New-York Historical Society and is the curator of the Society´s Robert H. and Clarice Smith New York Gallery of American History´s new permanent exhibition. Previously she was the founding editor of the New-York Journal of American History. A graduate of Vassar College, Paley received both an MA in American Studies and a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University.

Jack Saul is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Population and Family Health at Columbia University. He co-founded the Bellevue/NYU Program for Survivors of Torture in 1995 and was its clinical director until 1998 when he founded NYU School of Medicine's International Trauma Studies Program (ITSP), an independent post-graduate training and research institute in New York City and Uganda, which he also currently directs. In 1999, Dr. Saul established Refuge, a resource center in New York for survivors of political violence and forced migration, and a member of the National Consortium of Torture Treatment Programs. Dr. Saul has been a member since 2000 of the Kosovo Family Professional Educational Collaborative, which has been instrumental in the development of the community mental health system in post-war Kosovo. His seminar with the fellows explored trauma and its aftermath, and some methods for working with post-conflict societies.

Graeme Simpson is a lecturer in law at Columbia Law School; he also works as an independent consultant and Senior Advisor to the Director General of Interpeace, an NGO which works in conflict and immediate post-conflict zones around the world. He has worked extensively on issues related to transitional justice, including work with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and on the transformation of criminal justice institutions in South Africa.

Dr. Paul Williams is a Senior Content Developer at Ralph Appelbaum Associates. Dr. Williams’ work for Ralph Appelbaum Associates involves the planning, research, and conceptualization of content for globally significant new museum projects, including the world's first Arab Slavery Museum, and the International African American Museum. Prior to this position, Dr. Williams taught for several years in the graduate program in Museum Studies at New York University. Paul received his Ph.D. from the University of Melbourne, Australia, in Cultural Studies. In his seminar at Columbia, Dr. Williams explored the problematics of "exhibiting" trauma, or in general confronting violent pasts through visual media and museum modes.

Carla De Ycaza is the editor of the Dialogues on Historical Justice and Memory Network at Columbia University. She received her M.A. in Human Rights Studies from Columbia University and her B.A. in Political Science and Classics from Vassar College. She is currently finishing her Ph.D. in International Human Rights Law at the Irish Centre for Human Rights. Her research has focused on traditional and modern approaches to post-conflict transitional justice in Africa in response to genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. She is a lecturer at the Center for Global Affairs at New York University, and was a visiting scholar at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University. She has worked with civil society organizations in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and currently serves as Assistant Program Director of Conflict Resolution at the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding.