Research

I am a native Californian and New Yorker. I have lived and worked in Nicaragua, Mexico, Guatemala and Colombia. I have conducted field research on genocide in Guatemala since 1990 and on peacebuilding in conflict zones in Colombia since 2000. My most recent research trip to Guatemala was June 2019 to finalize research on feminicide and serve as an expert witness in a tribunal on gender violence. In April of 2015, I was in Cartagena for a special session of the Inter-American Court to document the hearing of a Guatemalan feminicide case I have been working on since 2007. I wrote Textures of Terror ~ The Murder of Claudina Isabel Velasquez and Her Father’s Quest for Justice while a Visiting Scholar at the Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad Libre in Bogota (2016-2017) and at the Institute for the Study of Human Rights at Columbia University in 2018. I am currently completing Friends Who Disappear.

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I hold a doctorate in Anthropology from Stanford University where I also completed coursework at Stanford Law School in International Human Rights Law and Immigration Law as well as course work on democratization and development in the Department of Political Science. I hold a Certificate in International Human Rights Law from the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights in San Jose, Costa Rica.