Visiting research fellows are scholars who join the Kroc Institute for up to a year to conduct peace research and collaborate with faculty. In addition to research and writing, visiting fellows collaborate with other researchers working their area; interact with Kroc faculty and faculty fellows in the broader Notre Dame community; and present public lectures about their research.
Meet the Kroc Institute's 2009-2010 visiting fellows:
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David Backer (2009-10) is an assistant professor of government at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. His research focuses on transitional justice in West Africa, South Africa, and Latin America. Specifically, he assesses how victims of human rights violations respond to post-conflict measures. As a Kroc Institute Fellow, Backer will analyze civil war victims’ responses to post-conflict justice processes in four West African countries: Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. Backer’s projects have received funding from the National Science Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, the Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, the American Political Science Association, and the Department of Defense. He also serves on the board of editors of The International Journal of Transitional Justice. david.backer.4@nd.edu |
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Thomas Burkman (Fall 2009) a 20th-century Japanese historian, is a research professor of Asian Studies at the State University of New York at Buffalo, where he also holds an adjunct faculty appointment in the department of history. Burkman’s work focuses on Japan’s relationship to world order in the 1920s and 30s, as well as the Allied occupation of Japan following the Second World War. At the Kroc Institute, Burkman plans to explore new methods for establishing social harmony among Korea, China, and Japan. His project will address multicultural approaches to peace processes and examine the role of religion. A former Fulbright scholar, Burkman has served on advisory panels for the U.S. Department of Education and the Fulbright Commission. He is the author of Japan and the League of Nations: Empire and World Order, 1914-1938 Honolulu (University of Hawaii Press, 2008) thomas.w.burkman.1@nd.edu |
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George Wachira (Fall 2009) is a Ph.D. candidate in peace studies at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom. He also is senior research and policy advisor of Nairobi Peace Initiative-Africa,where he served as executive director from 1996-2006. Wachira’s research project at the Kroc Institute examines emerging transitional justice practices in Africa, specifically, the use of truth and reconciliation commissions.
Wachira has extensive peacebuilding experience in East, West and Central Africa. In the wake of post-election violence in Kenya, he helped launched a forum called Concerned Citizens for Peace, which functioned as a forerunner to later international mediation. Wachira earned an M.A. in peace studies from the Kroc Institute in 1991. george.wachira.3@nd.edu |
