Louis Bickford, PhD
Louis Bickford, a political scientist, has consulted with governmental and nongovernmental organizations, human rights activists, and democratic movements on strategies for confronting the legacies of past abuse in more than a dozen countries, including Burma, Mexico, and Nigeria. As Director of Alliances and Capacity Development, he manages the Transitional Justice Alliance (a global network of NGOs and individuals involved in transitional justice); coordinates fellowship programs in Cape Town, South Africa, and Santiago, Chile, and develops training materials in collaboration with international partners such as the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. He also develops the Center's thematic work on monuments and memorials. Previously, he was the Associate Director of the Global Studies Program and a lecturer in International Studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. In addition to teaching regular seminars on human rights, he coordinated the Legacies of Authoritarianism project, working closely with partner institutions and with scholars and human rights activists from Latin America, South East Asia, Eastern Europe, and Southern Africa. Prior to his arrival at the University of Wisconsin, Dr. Bickford worked as a frequent consultant to the Human Rights and the Democratic Governance Programs at the Ford Foundation in Santiago, Chile, and was a Visiting Researcher at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO-Chile). He earned a Ph.D. at McGill University (1997) and an M.A. at the New School for Social Research (1993), both in political science, and did additional graduate work at the University of Oslo, Norway. He has published in Human Rights Quarterly, Latin American Research Review, and various magazines and newspapers, and has book chapters in a number of edited volumes. He is a contributor to the forthcoming book "The Art of Truthtelling After Authoritarian Rule", and is the author of the entry on Transitional Justice for the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity (Macmillan). He has taught graduate and undergraduate courses at numerous colleges and universities, and is currently Adjunct Professor of graduate studies in the department of political science at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.

Mari Fitzduff, PhD
Mari Fitzduff is currently Professor of Conflict Studies, and Director of INCORE at Brandeis University. From 1990 - 1997 she was Director of the Community Relations Council, set up in 1990, and funded by the British Government and the European Union. The Council works with government, statutory bodies, trade unions, the media, businesses, and community groups developing policy, programs and training to address issues of conflict in Northern Ireland. In addition to her work in Northern Ireland, Mari Fitzduff has also worked as a program consultant on projects addressing conflict in the Middle East, in Sri Lanka, in the Basque country and in the CIS States..She also a board member of many national and international institutions working in the field of conflict management. Her publications include 'Beyond Violence - conflict resolution processes in Northern Ireland' published as part of the United Nations series on Conflict and Governance and 'Community Conflict Skills' a source book of theory and skills for program development in conflict resolution.

Profesor Mauricio González Cuervo
Mauricio González Cuervo obtained his law degree from the Universidad del Rosario, Bogotá Colombia, with a specialty in Public Law and in Economics. He is currently the Director of the Corporación Excelencia en la Justicia. Dr. González Cuervo was a legal advisor for the National Coffee Federation of Colombia, the Vice-minister of Justice y Vice-minister of the Interior. He has been a professor of de Municipal State and Territorial Codes and Comparative Constitutional Law. He currently holds a Chair of Constitutional Colombian History.

Harry Mika, PhD
An academic who has researched and written extensively on restorative justice and the role of ex-combatants. He is Professor of Sociology at Central Michigan University, and Senior Research Fellow in the School of Law, Queens University of Belfast (Northern Ireland). He teaches primarily in the areas of social justice, child welfare, and conflict transformation. An applied researcher and practitioner, he has worked closely with more than seventy-five community-based justice initiatives in the United States and abroad, on program design, implementation and evaluation themes. Since 1997, Harry Mika has been extensively involved with the development of alternatives to paramilitary punishment violence in Loyalist and Republican working class areas of Northern Ireland. His other recent and ongoing practice and research includes an appraisal of victim participation in restorative justice policy and practice in the U.S., developing indigenous justice program evaluation expertise in Northern Ireland and a comprehensive assessment of the field of community mediation in the U.S.

Professor Roberto Mora
Roberto Mora is a lawyer who graduated from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana with a specialty in commercial law and international affairs. He has a Master’s Degree in human rights and a DIH from Essex University in the United Kingdom. He worked for over ten years in the financial and insurance sector until 1999 when he decided to move into the field of human rights and peace. Currently, he is the Director of the Institute of Human Rights, Department of Political Sciences and International Relations at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana where he is also a professor. He is also an advisor to Colombia’s High Peace Commissioner.

Declan Roche, PhD
Dr Declan Roche is Lecturer in Law at the London School of Economics, where he is also a member of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology. He holds degrees in Law, Economics and a PhD in Law from Australian National University. Declan's main teaching and research interest is criminal justice policy, focussing on restorative justice. His publications on this topic include Accountability in Restorative Justice (Oxford University Press, 2003, paperback forthcoming 2004), which examines the nature and effectiveness of accountability safeguards in restorative justice programs, drawing on fieldwork from 25 programs in six countries, including Declan's own experience convening restorative justice conferences in New South Wales, Australia. Other recent publications on restorative justice include articles in the British Journal of Criminology and Economy and Society, and an edited collection, Restorative Justice (Ashgate, 2004).

Oscar Rojas Renteria, MD
Dr. Oscar Rojas is currently the Director of the AlvarAlice Foundation in Cali, Colombia. As a specialist in development issues, has devoted his career to public service in both, policy making and operating institutions in the areas of health and education. Doctor Rojas has been also university teacher and researcher and has worked half of his professional life in not for profit Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) and in international consultancy with emphasis in institutional development, resource mobilization, capacity building and management improvement of CSOs. Dr. Rojas sits on many national and international Boards, and has served as a consultant for the World Bank, the World Health Organization, United Nations Industrial Development Organization among others. He served as Vice-minister of Health of Colombia (June1987-September 1988) and as the President of the Universidad Del Valle, Cali, Colombia.

Professor Diana Britto Ruiz
Diana Britto Ruiz has a degree in psychology from the Universidad del Valle, with a Masters in Political Studies from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. She is currently the Director of the Political Science Program at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Cali, and she coordinates the University’s research project on Restorative Justice since 2001. She is also a member of the Center of Women, Gender and Society at the Universidad del Valle. She has written on gender and politics among others “Gender and Sexuality” and “Texts and Practices of Gender Studies” published by Manzana de la Discordia.

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