Executive Board Nominees

President

Melanie O’Brien

IAGS is a wonderful community of scholars and contributing to IAGS is a highly fulfilling aspect of my career. I have extensive experience across IAGS activities and structures, having served on the GSP Editorial Board; various ad hoc committees; two terms on the Advisory Board; and two terms as 2^nd Vice-President of IAGS. I was co-convener of the 2017 IAGS Conference at UQ.

It would be an honour to be president of IAGS, particularly as IAGS has not had a female president for 20 years, and in its 24 years, only 4 years have seen a woman lead IAGS. Being kept apart recently has highlighted the importance of our community as a scholarly support network, and I want to connect our members more often, virtually and IRL. As president of IAGS, I would like to expand resources and practical opportunities for members, overseeing solidification of nascent projects, expansion of website functions and the webinar series, creation of new caucuses, and deepening our relationship with external entities such as the UN Special Advisor as part of a push to raise IAGS’ profile globally.

Outside of IAGS, I am Senior Lecturer in International Law at UWA. I have published extensively on international criminal law, particularly sexual and gender-based violence against women in atrocity contexts, and genocide and human rights. I have extensive fieldwork experience across six continents, specialising in the Holocaust, Bosnia, Armenia, Cambodia and Rohingya genocides. My approach to genocide studies is an emphasis on justice and giving voice to victims.

 

First Vice President

Armen T. Marsoobian

Armen T. Marsoobian, Professor of Philosophy, Southern Connecticut State University, Affiliate Faculty, Institute of Human Rights, University of Connecticut, Editor-in-Chief Metaphilosophy. I serve as IAGS First Vice President and have been an active member since 2004, participating in every conference since 2005. I co-chair the planning committee of the 2021 IAGS biennial conference which moved from Barcelona to virtual due to the pandemic. Given the work I have already done, I hope to continue working collaboratively on the on-ground Barcelona conference in 2023.

I taught courses on the Armenian Genocide and Holocaust as a visiting professor at Columbia University. I have lectured and published on topics in moral philosophy, genocide studies, human rights, aesthetics, and the Armenian Genocide. I developed new undergraduate and graduate courses on human rights, comparative genocide, and the Holocaust. I co-edited seven books, including Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Genocide and Memory (2018), Criticism and Compassion: The Ethics and Politics of Claudia Card (2018), and Genocide’s Aftermath: Responsibility and Repair (2007). My 2015 book, Fragments of a Lost Homeland: Remembering Armenia, is based upon extensive research about my family, who were accomplished Ottoman photographers and genocide survivors. Exhibitions of their photography were mounted in Turkey, Armenia, England, and the United States. I have worked closely with Turkish NGOs focusing on the treatment of minorities and accountability with regard to the Armenian Genocide. I serve on the Connecticut State Department of Education Advisory Committee on Genocide and Holocaust Education. In this capacity I have organized workshops for high school teachers.

 

Second Vice President

Suren Manukyan

Suren Manukyan is the Head of the UNESCO Chair on Prevention of Genocide and Other Atrocity Crimes at Yerevan State University. He is also a Visiting lecturer at the American University of Armenia and Head of the Department of Comparative Genocide Studies at the Armenian Genocide Museum-Institute (Yerevan). He has been a Fulbright Scholar at the Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights at the Rutgers University of New Jersey.

Dr. Manukyan has extensive experience with the IAGS, including as a member of the IAGS Resolutions’ committee (2015-2017) and a member of the Advisory Board (2017-2021). As 2nd Vice President, he will encourage practical spheres of IAGS activities. He is very enthusiastic about the recent IAGS Curriculum Project, which he believes will serve to promote genocide teaching and help genocide educators generate new courses on genocides and crimes against humanity. He also likes mentoring programs for emerging scholars, and believes the next step would be to create a ground for scientific cooperation within the organization. He wants to create a database of members of the organization with the specification of academic interests or research areas, which can be helpful for joint research projects, for unearthing people for peer-review, and for understanding emerging trends in genocide studies.

If elected, Manukyan is ready to “assist the President with international outreach, co-sponsorship of other conferences, and other administrative responsibilities of the IAGS.”

 

Tim Williams

I am a Junior Professor of Insecurity and Social Order and Chairman of the interdisciplinary research centre RISK at the Bundeswehr University Munich. I am also co-editor-in-chief of ZeFKo Studies in Peace and Conflict. My research deals with genocidal violence, focussing particularly on micro-level dynamics, as well as its consequences for post-conflict societies and the politics of memory, building on extensive field research in Cambodia. I am the author of the book The Complexity of Evil. Perpetration and Genocide (2021, Rutgers University Press).

Building on my work as emerging scholar representative on the Executive Board of IAGS since 2017, as Second Vice President I plan to launch programmes for members that get scholars into conversation, exchanging ideas, experiences and expertise. I am also deeply passionate about expanding our regional diversity, particularly in the Global South, enhancing our commitment to interdisciplinarity and making the association more inclusive and diverse.

 

New Media Officer

Emily Sample

Emily Sample is the Programs Director at the Fund for Peace as well as a PhD candidate at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Peace and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University. She holds a BA from the College of William and Mary and a Master of Arts in Human Rights and Genocide Studies from Kingston University, London. Previously, she worked as Associate Director of Education at Holocaust Museum Houston and for the International Conference on the Great Lakes Region Ugandan National Committee on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide and Mass Atrocities, as well as the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

As a member of the IAGS, Sample co-founded the Women’s Caucus of Genocide Scholars. Currently she is the New Media Officer for IAGS and has served on the Executive Board for two years. In that time, she has overseen the redesign of the IAGS website, with a specific focus on streamlining membership and communications services. She has managed the IAGS Twitter (@GenocideStudies) for five years, consistently increasing the organization’s follower count and digital engagement. With Timothy Williams, Sample helped establish the IAGS Emerging Scholar Facebook group. She also led the Admin team for the main IAGS Facebook page, which is by far the largest digital interaction space. She plans to continue to synthesize digital platforms and increase the IAGS’ visibility in order to attract more diverse voices among our members. She hopes to build on the scaffolding she has established and add more resources to the IAGS website for both the public and IAGS members.

 

Communications Officer

Kerry Whigham

Kerry Whigham is Assistant Professor of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention at the Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, Binghamton University, New York, as well as Director of Research and Online Education at the Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities. Since 2018, Whigham has served as Communications Officer for the IAGS. During his tenure, he worked to create increased opportunities for members to share information about publications, events, calls for participation, and job openings. To do this, Whigham initiated a biannual member-update newsletter, maintained the IAGS listserv, and managed its transition to a new platform. He coordinated membership voting on by-law changes and resolutions, and facilitated a new partnership between the IAGS and the Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities to bring an increasingly international group of practitioners and policymakers into the organization. He hopes to continue this work by being elected for a second term as Communications Officer. For more information visit: www.kerrywhigham.com.

 

Secretary

Elisenda Calvet Martínez

Elisenda Calvet Martínez is Assistant Professor in Public International Law, coordinator of the Legal Clinic for the Fight against Impunity, and assistant to the Vice-Dean of Research and International Relation of the University of Barcelona (Spain). She has worked for the Spanish Red Cross, the Catalan Ombudsman, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (San José, Costa Rica), and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Geneva, Switzerland). She has directed the Course on Current Issues of Spanish Foreign Policy (2015-19) of the CEI International Affairs (Diplomatic School in Barcelona) together with the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She is currently the co-chair of the 2021 IAGS Conference on behalf of the University of Barcelona.

Professor Martínez has also carried out research visits at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (LINC) of the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven, Belgium) and the Carlos III University of Madrid (Spain). Her main lines of research are transitional justice, human rights, international humanitarian law, and international criminal law. She has participated in several research projects on human rights at a national level and has also directed two research projects of the International Catalan Institute for Peace (ICIP). Her doctoral thesis focused on enforced disappearances and transitional justice and her current research focuses on strengthening justice and democracy in Guatemala, sexual violence as genocide, and the impact of new technologies on transitional justice. Her latest publication, “Sexual Violence as Genocide against Indigenous Peoples: the case of Mayan women in Guatemala”, is for the Routledge Handbook on Religion and Genocide (forthcoming).

 

Susan Braden

Susan Braden is the Director of Strategic Partnerships at the Auschwitz Institute for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities (AIPG, formerly AIPR).  She spent five years as the Managing Editor of Genocide Studies and Prevention, the international online journal of the IAGS, stepping down in early 2020. She holds a joint- European Master of Arts in Human Rights and Genocide Studies from Kingston University in London and Università degli Studi di Siena.

If elected, Braden plans to enhance the work of the IAGS by furthering the connections between the field’s scholars and practitioners, with a particular focus on underrepresented groups. In addition to her role working with scholars and practitioners across the globe at the Auschwitz Institute, her research interests are focused on the links between refugees, transitional justice, and atrocity prevention. Her previous research has mainly focused on traditional methods of transitional justice in the Great Lakes Region of Africa and Somalia.

 

Treasurer

Christopher W. Mullins

Hello. I am Christopher W. Mullins, Ph.D., a Professor in the School of Justice and Public Safety at Southern Illinois University, US. My research focuses on violence, especially atrocity violence, including the role of the state and structural conditions. To date, I have published 3 books, an edited volume, a textbook, 39 peer-reviewed articles, and 30 book chapters. I am co-editor of Emerald’s Advances in Historical Criminology series and am currently writing a socio-legal history of the laws of war.

I have served on multiple executive boards in the past. As editor of the Critical Criminologist, I was a member of the executive board for the American Society of Criminal Justice’s Critical Criminology and Social Justice division. I served on the board of Carbondale New School (a private k-8 school) for two years, serving one year as Vice Chair and the second as Chair. I have held many administrative academic appointments in my professorial career as well: Undergraduate Program Director, Graduate Program Director, and Acting Chair for my home department; as well as serving as Director of the University Studies program at my institution (all of which involved managing budgets of various size). I have also served on the editorial boards of several journals.

I fully and firmly believe in the mission of the International Association of Genocide Scholars, it is why I am a life time member. I am running for Treasurer to support the organization and help maintain its relevance and vitality. Thank you for your consideration.

 

Julia M. White

Julia M. White is an Associate Professor in the Department of Teaching and Leadership in the School of Education, Syracuse University. She directs the interdisciplinary minor in Atrocity Studies and the Practices of Social Justice and is the co-coordinator of the Spector/Warren Fellowship for Future Educators, which brings students to the Holocaust Museum Houston for a week to engage in teaching about the Holocaust. Her research agenda includes special educational policy at the national and international levels and inclusive education as a human right, particularly related to Romani students in Central and Eastern Europe and students with significant disabilities. She is the recipient of two Fulbright fellowships to the Slovak Republic and the 2016 Junior Scholar Award of the Disability Studies in Education Special Interest Group of the American Education Research Association. Her work has been cited in a European Court of Human Rights decision on the misdiagnosis of Romani students, and she has testified in regional courts in the Hungary and the Slovak Republic. She has served as both Secretary/Treasurer and Chair of the Disability Studies in Education and Inclusive and Special Education Research Special Interest Groups of the American Educational Research Association.

 

Advisory Board Nominees

Kerri J. Malloy

I am interested in serving as a member of the IAGS Advisory Board to gain firsthand experience in the organization’s operations, and help enhance an already strong organization. I am an Indigenous person (Yurok and Karuk) whose research focuses on Indigenous genocide, healing, and reconciliation in North America and the necessity of systemic change within societal structures to advance transitional justice. Indigenous people have been the targets and victims of genocide since the initiation of the global settler-colonial project. Nonetheless, our voices are not always heard in larger discussions and debates on genocide and mass atrocities. I bring to the table an Indigenous perspective grounded in the cultures and philosophies of Indigenous people of northwestern California and the Pacific Northwest. I would work to ensure that Indigenous voices, perspectives, and world views are represented within IAGS.

I am a doctoral candidate in the Holocaust and Genocide Studies Ph.D. program at Gratz College. I have taught for the last seven years as a lecturer in the Department of Native American Studies at Humboldt State University. I will join the faculty in the Department of Humanities at San Jose State University as an Assistant Professor of Global Humanities in the fall.

 

Chigbo Arthur Anyaduba                    

My scholarly interests are broadly multidisciplinary and lie at the intersection of African literary and cultural studies, genocide studies, diasporic and postcolonial studies. I have particularly been concerned with tracing the various modes of representing and theorizing mass violence and atrocities occurring in Africa, as well as some of the tropes through which violent encounters have been understood in Africa and beyond. This scholarly project has produced a book project (The Postcolonial African Genocide Novel: Quests for Meaningfulness, which is forthcoming with Liverpool University Press in October 2021), other publications, and works in progress.

My interest in joining IAGS’s Advisory Board is informed by a desire to contribute to diversifying the association’s focuses and perspectives through reference to non-Western frameworks and experiences. I am currently an Assistant Professor of English at the University of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.

 

Mohammad Pizuar Hossain

Mohammad Pizuar Hossain is Senior Lecturer in Law at East West University, Bangladesh. He is also a researcher at the Centre for the Study of Genocide and Justice, Liberation War Museum, Bangladesh; and a consultant for the Bangladesh Office, Asia Justice and Rights, Indonesia. He has published on plea-bargaining; rape as a genocidal tool; amnesty for international crimes; and Rohingya persecution.

Mr. Hossain intends to contribute to shaping global opinion on the recognition of Bangladesh’s genocide and the prevention of future genocides worldwide. He, therefore, aims to work with the Executive Board (EB) of the IAGS in organizing biennial conferences, emerging scholar programs, international outreach programs to recruit new members of different countries especially from South Asia, and campaign for membership renewal; and performing other duties as required.

Mr. Hossain seeks for a position on the Advisory Board of the IAGS as an emerging scholar of Bangladesh.

 

Jim Snow

I am interested in running for a seat on the IAGS Advisory Board. I am on the faculty of Loyola University Maryland where I teach the following courses:  Philosophy and Genocide, Ethics After Auschwitz, and The Ethics and Politics of Humanitarian Intervention.  My research focuses on problems related to defining genocide and how women are ‘framed’ in genocide scholarship as well as how they are framed in genocide-media, including documentaries docudramas. Much of my work has focused on the Rwandan genocide and the current genocide in Myanmar.  I have worked with a number of young genocide scholars as an IAGS mentor.

I would bring to the role of Advisory Board member years of teaching experience, both at the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as scholarship in Genocide Studies.  I would like to see IAGS be more involved in curriculum development for secondary education teachers as well as those teaching university undergraduate courses in history, political science, philosophy, and other related areas.

 

Caroline Bennett

I am re-running for the IAGS advisory board, which I have been on for the last two years. I would love to continue supporting the work of IAGS and the IAGS community, especially given the difficulties COVID-19 has brought us, and the issues we see globally related to genocide and its understanding in recent times.

I am a socio-cultural anthropologist who works on the Cambodian genocide (understanding community relations to mass death, and on the use of the genocide in state building projects). I also work on the treatment of human remains after mass death, bringing a socio-cultural lens to their attention. I previously trained as a forensic anthropologist, and worked for a short time with ICMP in Bosnia-Herzegovina (on the Srebrenica massacre), and Iraq (following Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist regime). Thus, I bring practical and theoretical approaches to considering genocide and its aftermath. My work is published in forensic and social science scholarship, I have previously been involved with the forensic forums in the UK, and have participated in several international initiatives related to mass grave investigation and the identification of human remains. I believe my forensic and humanitarian background, and ongoing research in Cambodia, brings a unique lens to considering genocide globally, and therefore contributes uniquely to IAGS. I am currently a research fellow with Te Herenga Waka-Victoria University of Wellington. I love being part of the vibrant community of IAGS, and would love the opportunity to serve again, to continue the work we started over the last term.

 

Rosa Ana Alija Fernández

I am an Associate Professor of Public International Law at the University of Barcelona. For more than 15 years I have devoted my research in the legal field to international criminal law –focusing on discriminatory crimes (my book on the crime against humanity of persecution is cited by the UN International Law Commission Special Rapporteur on crimes against humanity in his first report) – universal jurisdiction and relations between individual and State responsibility, human rights and transitional justice. I am also Coordinator of the Legal clinic on the fight against impunity and of the Master’s Degree in Advanced Legal Studies at the University of Barcelona.

I have been a visiting professor at several Latin-American universities and visiting researcher at the University of Uppsala, the Research Centre in Latin-American Criminal and Procedural Law of the University of Göttingen, and the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. I have collaborated with the ICTR in training Rwandan lawyers on universal jurisdiction and with international research teams and networks in the field of transitional justice. I am also a member of the Barcelona City Council Assessment Committee for the recognition of persons subjected to reprisals by late Francoism and of the Catalan Government Technical Committee for the Recovery and Identification of Persons Disappeared during the Civil War and the Francoist Dictatorship.

 

Sarah Snyder

I am the Mike Jacobs Fellow in Holocaust Studies and a PhD Candidate at The University of Texas at Dallas in History. My PhD is entitled “The Historical Complexities of Time Constructs in Relation to the Term ‘Post-Holocaust.’” I am analyzing Holocaust literature, arguing that the term ‘post-Holocaust’ is an inaccurate representation of the Holocaust for survivors. I have worked and conducted research at Auschwitz-Birkenau since 2013 focusing on memory and museology.

I am seeking a position with the Advisory Board for the International Association of Genocide Scholars. Since 2019, I have been an engaged member including being a part of the Emerging Scholars group and as a member of the 2021 conference organizing committee. I would be honored to continue my relationship with the organization by becoming a part of the Advisory Board. As such, I hope to contribute to the ever-growing community of IAGS and encourage further engagement from emerging scholars.