Academic Staff
Professor Richard English
Richard is Director of the Mitchell Institute, and a Professor of Politics at Queen's University. His research focuses on political violence and on nationalism, his books including the award-winning studies Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA (2003) and Irish Freedom: The History of Nationalism in Ireland (2006).
He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. In 2019 he was awarded the Royal Irish Academy's Gold Medal in the Social Sciences.
Professor Fiona Magowan
A Professor of Anthropology, Fiona’s research examines value conflicts in Australian Aboriginal domestic moral economy & the effects of art in reparation & reconciliation processes.
She is the author or editor of seven books, including Christianity, Conflict and Renewal in the Australia Pacific (2016), as well as more than fifty chapters and journal articles. She has held positions as Chair of the Anthropological Association of Ireland and Vice-President of the Australian Anthropological Society.
Professor Louise Mallinder
Professor Mallinder's research interests relate to the fields of international human rights law, international criminal law, and law and politics in political transitions.
Within these areas of research, she has a longstanding and internationally recognised expertise in amnesty laws, and in recent years, she has worked on projects relating to the role of lawyers as transitional actors, dealing with the past in Northern Ireland, and socio-legal research methods related to transitional justice.
Professor Kieran McEvoy
A Professor of Law and Transitional Justice, his research interests include transitional justice; human rights; political imprisonment, restorative justice, and conflict resolution
He has written or edited six books and over fifty journal articles and scholarly book chapters and has conducted research on transitional justice in Sierra Leone, Rwanda, Uganda, Colombia, South Africa, Argentina, Uruguay, Spain, Italy, Cambodia, Chile, Israel, Palestine as well as Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.
Professor John D. Brewer
A Professor of Post-Conflict Studies, John is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences.
He has an honorary degree from Brunel University for services to social science, is a former President of the British Sociological Association and is a member of the prestigious United Nations Roster of Global Experts for expertise on religion and peacebuilding. Author of 15 books and editor of three.
Professor Hastings Donnan
Hastings is co-Director of the Centre for International Borders Research and Professor Emeritus at Queen's University Belfast.
He is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Member of the Royal Irish Academy and a foundational Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences. He has conducted extensive field research at Pakistan’s borders with Kashmir and Afghanistan and has published over twenty books and lectured worldwide.
Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela
Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela is Professor and Research Chair in Historical Trauma and Transformation at Stellenbosch University, South Africa and is Honorary Professor at Queen's University Belfast.
She served on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) of South Africa managing the public hearings process of the TRC’s Human Rights Violations Committee. Her critically acclaimed book, A Human Being Died that Night: A South African Story of Forgiveness won the Christopher Award in the United States and the Alan Paton Award in South Africa.
Practitioner Chairs
Professor Michael Semple
Professor Michael Semple is Practitioner Chair at The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. He works on innovative approaches to peace-making and engagement with militant Islamic movements in Afghanistan and South Asia.
His interests include the political culture of the Afghan Taliban and kindred militant Islamic, the role and potential of dialogue and social media in conflict transformation and the challenge of pluralism in the post 9/11 Muslim world.
Professor David Connolly
Professor David Connolly works at the intersection between research, policy and practice in fragile and conflict-affected states, specializing in the role of evidence in conflict prevention and post-conflict recovery.
With a primary interest in institutional governance, David engages regularly with other disciplines and sectors that include education, climate change adaptation, financial management, and international law.