Academic Team
La Benevolencija has a board of academic advisors that includes genocide scholar and psychologist Ervin Staub of the University of Massachusetts, trauma psychologist Laurie Anne Pearlman of the Trauma Research, Education, and Training Institute (TREATI) , researchers from Yale University's Institute of Political Psychology and from the Psychology of Peace and the Prevention of Violence Doctoral Program at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and others.
Ervin Staub
is a world-renowned scholar of the origins and prevention of genocide, including reconciliation. Based on cross-national research articulated in his 1989 book The Roots of Evil and subsequent publications, he developed a conception of the origins and prevention of genocide and mass killing. He and Laurie Anne Pearlman have conducted work in Rwanda on psychological recovery and reconciliation, beginning in 1998. Professor Staub, Laurie Anne Pearlman and La Benevolencija have applied his psychological-interdisciplinary approach to understanding and preventing genocide, and their joint approach to psychological recovery and reconciliation for radio programs on understanding the roots of violence, prevention and reconciliation. This approach emphasizes the psychological impact of difficult life conditions in a society and the social/cultural conditions that can facilitate the evolution of violence. It points to actions that "bystanders" can take to prevent violence and promote reconciliation.
Laurie Anne Pearlman
is a clinical psychologist who has been treating, researching and writing about survivors of psychological trauma since 1987. She has published on both direct and indirect trauma and has provided trauma training internationally. Pearlman has received awards for her scientific, clinical, and media contributions related to traumatic stress. She coauthored the Risking Connection trauma training curriculum (2000), which presents the RICH (Respect, Information, Communication and Hope) approach to trauma healing. La Benevolencija's public education programs convey a community mental health, or neighbor-to-neighbor approach to healing based on RICH.
Elizabeth Levy Paluck
received her PhD from Yale University in Social Psychology. Her dissertation was entitled "Reducing intergroup prejudice and conflict with the mass media: A field experiment in Rwanda ." In September 2007, she will become an Academy Scholar at the Weatherhead Center for International and Area Studies at Harvard University . Her research interests include political psychology, intergroup prejudice, violence and conflict reduction, media, and the contributions of psychology to development work. Levy Paluck is in charge of the project's evaluation operations.
Click here to read an interview with Elizabeth Levy Paluck
Johanna Vollhardt
holds a Masters in Psychology from the University of Cologne (Germany),
where she has also been trained in psychological diagnostics and intervention
methods, as well as in client-centered psychotherapy. She is currently a PhD
candidate in social psychology with a concentration on peace and violence at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her research focuses on victim
consciousness and pro-social behavior between victims of ethno-political
violence. Vollhardt is in charge of adapting Staub's research and other
psychological subject matter into program content for the Democratic Republic of
Congo.
Rezarta Bilali
is a PhD candidate in social psychology with a concentration on peace and prevention of violence at the University of Massachusetts Amherst . She holds a Masters in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from Sabanci University in Turkey , and her research interests include investigation of group identities and collective memories, groups' images of each other, and social trust. Bilali is in charge of adapting Staub's research and other psychological subject matter into program content for Rwanda and Burundi.
Adin Thayer
is a specialist in psychosocial peacebuilding, was most recently a program manager with the Karuna Center for Peacebuilding and is an international consultant with experience in conflict transformation, psychosocial recovery, reconciliation, and training. She has extensive experience working in the area of gender and peacebuilding, particularly in Africa. She led a four-part training program with Rwandan women working in NGOs to develop peace leadership and mediation skills for rebuilding their lives and society following the genocide, and facilitated workshops on conflict and gender sensitivity and advocacy for international nongovernmental organization staff from the Great Lakes Region of Africa. Thayer works domestically with issues of racism, with a perspective drawn from her work in protracted conflicts in other countries.