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The Team

 

Kyle Matthews, Deputy Director of MIGS

 

Kyle Matthews is the Senior Deputy Director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University and a Fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute. His work focuses on human rights, international security, the Responsibility to Protect, global threats, and social media and technology. He works closely with the Canadian All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Prevention of Genocide and has advised Members of Parliament on issues related to international peace and security. Kyle tweets at @kylecmatthews and can be reached via email at kyle.matthews@concordia.ca

Isadora Hellegren, Project Leader

 

With a background in Communication Studies and European Studies from Gothenburg University in Sweden and City University of Hong Kong, Isadora aims at applying her knowledge about and experience in communication and online media on genocide prevention and the protection of human rights, online as well as offline. She holds a special interest in online communication technologies and their architecture as tools for the development and internationalization of humanitarian work and civil society. As the Project Leader for the Raoul Wallenberg Legacy of Leadership Project, Isadora is responsible for defining, planning, tracking and managing the project. Isadora tweets at @Zeldazadora and can be reached by emal at isadora.hellegren@gmail.com.

 

Meagan Boissé, Social Media 

 

Meagan Boissé is currently undergoing her bachelors in Multiplatform Journalism at Concordia University. She is the only first-year journalism student to be accepted within Concordia’s Co-op program, and is the recipient of the Lyndsay Chrysler Entrance Scholarship. She graduated with honours from Dawson College and has a DEC in Cinema, Video & Communication. Inspired by her strong desire to learn and travel, she has recently participated in a humanitarian mission to Guatemala and has backpacked extensively abroad. Meagan worked for a period of time as the Raoul Wallenberg Legacy of Leadership Project's Social Media point-person. Meagan tweets at @MeaggyLee and can be reached by email meagan.boisse@hotmail.com.

Neekoo Collett, Founder of Website 

 

Neekoo Collett is a Master of Global Affairs candidate at the University of Toronto’s Munk School. Her SSHRC funded research focuses on the situation of Iranian Baha’is and strategies for the inhibition of violence. More broadly, Neekoo studies issues of genocide prevention, humanitarian intervention, and R2P. She has interned previously at the Canadian International Council, and is an analyst for the Sentinel Project. As the website creator, Neekoo built this website. Neekoo tweets at @ookeen and can be reached by email at neekoo.collett@mail.utoronto.ca

Frank Chalk, Director of MIGS

 

Frank Chalk (Ph.D, Wisconsin-Madison) is Professor of History and Director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University. Prof. Chalk has been a Fellow of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC and a Fulbright Professor in Ibadan, Nigeria.

 

Dr. Chalk is co-author, with Kurt Jonassohn, of The History and Sociology of Genocide (Yale U.P., 1990) and is a past president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars and the Canadian Association for African Studies. Mobilizing the Will to Intervene: Leadership to Prevent Mass Atrocities, co-authored with Roméo Dallaire, Kyle Matthews and others, was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in August 2010. 

Dr. Chalk’s current research focuses on radio and TV broadcasting in the incitement and prevention of genocide, mobilizing the domestic Will to Intervene (W2I), in cooperation with Gen. Dallaire, and an SSHRC-funded project on the life stories of Montrealers who escaped from persecution and mass atrocity crimes. 

 

Prof. Chalk has lectured and presented papers on genocide at conferences and universities around the world and before the Prosecution Staff of the International Criminal Tribunal on the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda at The Hague and he participates in training missions overseas organized by the UN Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. He tweets at @drfrank101 and can be reached by email at drfrank@alcor.concordia.ca.

Marie Lamensch, Assistant to the Director of MIGS

 

Marie Lamensch is Belgian but has lived in Germany, France, Canada and the UK. After completing a Bachelor’s degree in History (specialization Genocide studies) at Montreal’s Concordia University, Marie moved to the UK where she completed a Master’s degree in Conflict, Security and Development at King’s College London and wrote her dissertation on post-conflict reconciliation in Rwanda. She has been an intern for MIGS since 2008 and initially started working on Zimbabwe. However, a profound interest for the conflict and peace processes the Great Lakes Region made her switch to the DRCongo. Marie now works as the Assistant to the Director at MIGS. She manages a team of interns on MIGS' Media Monitoring Project, which is intended to provide early warning of genocide and mass atrocity crimes. Marie also works on the Will to Intervene Project, conducting research on genocide prevention and organizing events. Marie tweets at @MarieLamensch84 and can be reached via email at marie.lamensch74@gmail.com.

Daniel Haboucha, Research Associate

 

Daniel Haboucha is a newly-admitted lawyer with an interest in conflict resolution and international human rights law. During his studies at McGill University and Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, he served as a reservist in the Canadian Forces and interned at the African Refugee Development Center. As a student, he also founded Omeq, a Middle East discussion group which won the SSMU's award for best new student club. Following law school, Daniel worked at McGill's Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism and lived in Jerusalem for a year as a Dorot Fellow, where he focused on shared-living projects bringing together Israel's Jewish and Arab citizens. Daniel can be reached at raoulwallenberglegacy@gmail.com.

 

Contributors to The Project

 

Randy Pinsky, Research 

 

Randy Pinsky recently graduated with a Masters in Political Science at Concordia University where she focused on peace and conflict studies and human rights. Her final essay, "Facilitated Impunity or a Necessary Evil? Questioning Assumptions About Amnesty in Sierra Leone" provokes a rethinking about the complexity of post-conflict rebuilding. Committed to 'research in action', she has completed an internship with the Quebec chapter of Médecins Sans Frontières, and assisted with the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies' (MIGS) 2011 conference, "The Promise of the Media in Halting Mass Atrocities", marking the tenth anniversary of Responsibility to Protect (R2P). She currently works as Research Associate at Concordia University’s Azrieli Institute of Israel Studies, and is an editor for the McGill Humanitarian Studies Initiative. A competitive dragonboat paddler and African drummer, Randy can be reached at ar_pinsk@live.concordia.ca.

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