Academic Staff

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.

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 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.

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.

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.