People
Staff
Joe Eggers
Interim Director
Joe Eggers joined the center in 2015 as a graduate assistant and staff member in 2018. In addition to his role as Interim Director, Joe coordinates the outreach efforts for the center, including developing connections with local communities and educators. He's especially interested in exploring the legacies of settler colonialism and how they are taught in classrooms.
George Dalbo
Research Fellow
George Dalbo is currently a Research Fellow at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota and a high school social studies teacher in rural south-central Wisconsin. With 15+ years of teaching experience, George has taught social studies in every grade from 5th-12th in public, charter, and private schools in Minnesota and Wisconsin and two years at a public school in Vienna, Austria. George earned his Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction - Social Studies Education with a minor in Human Rights from the University of Minnesota. Broadly, his research examines Holocaust, genocide, and human rights education in US and Canadian classrooms and curricula. Previously, George served as the Educational Outreach Coordinator and a Research Assistant for CHGS.
Kathleen Ibe
Research Assistant, and PhD Candidate (German, Nordic, Slavic, & Dutch)
Kathleen Ibe is a Ph.D. candidate in Germanic Studies in the Department of German, Nordic, Slavic & Dutch, specializing in German material-ecocriticism and ecofeminism. She is currently writing her dissertation titled “Feminist Perspectives on Non-Human Agency: A More-Than-Human Approach to German 20th and 21st Century Literature”. She frequently presents her research at the German Studies Association Annual Conference as well as the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment biennial conference. She has previously been a graduate fellow for the Environmental Humanities Initiative at the University of Minnesota and received the Max Kade Fellowship of the Department of German, Nordic, Slavic and Dutch. Currently, she is a Faculty Coordinator Assistant for the University of Minnesota’s College in the Schools program as well as a Research Assistant with the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies. Other research interests include ecopoetry and ecocritical film studies.
Jillian LaBranche
Research Assistant, and PhD Candidate (Sociology)
Jillian LaBranche is a PhD Candidate in Sociology and a current UMN dissertation doctoral fellow. Her research uses comparative methods to examine how knowledge is constructed at the intersections of collective memory, violence, and education. Her dissertation research seeks to understand how Rwandan and Sierra Leonean educators educate younger generations about the Rwandan Genocide and Sierra Leone Civil War, respectively. Her research has been supported by the US Fulbright Student Program, the American Sociological Association, the Fern and Bernard Badzin Fellowship, and the National Academy of Education/Spencer. Jillian has worked closely with CHGS, serving as the managing blog editor from 2019-2021, as a Research Assistant on various projects, and participating in the Genocide Education Outreach program. In collaboration with the Center, she has helped design educator workshops and the Rwandan Genocide Educator Guide.
Tibisay Navarro-Mana
Research Assistant, and PhD Candidate (History)
Tibisay Navarro-Mana is a PhD candidate in the History Department. Originally from Spain, her research focuses on the intersections between politics of historical memory and violations of human rights during the Spanish Civil War and the Francoist regime in Spain. She is currently working as a research assistant for the Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota and preparing to conduct long-term archival research in Spain.
Melanie O'Brien
Visiting Professor
Dr Melanie O’Brien is Visiting Professor at the Center for Holocaust & Genocide Studies, based in Global Studies. Dr O'Brien's regular position is Associate Professor of International Law at the UWA Law School, University of Western Australia.
The International Criminal Court has cited Dr O'Brien's work on forced marriage, and she has been an amicus curiae before the ICC. She has been an expert consultant for multiple UN bodies and is widely consulted by global media for her expertise on international criminal law. She has conducted fieldwork and research across six continents.
Dr O'Brien is the President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), and a member of the WA International Humanitarian Law Committee of the Australian Red Cross. She was a 2022 Research Fellow at the Sydney Jewish Museum & a 2023 Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Loughborough, UK.
Dr O'Brien is the author of Criminalising Peacekeepers: Modernising National Approaches to Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (Palgrave, 2017) and From Discrimination to Death: Genocide Process through a Human Rights Lens (Routledge, 2022).
Nikoleta Sremac
Research Assistant, and PhD Student (Sociology)
Nikoleta Sremac is a PhD Candidate in Sociology at the University of Minnesota. She has been working with the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies since 2020 and currently coordinates the Mass Violence and Human Rights (MVHR) Interdisciplinary Graduate Group. Nikoleta’s research explores the intersections of gender, social movements, and politics of memory in post-war societies. Her dissertation project examines the relationship between gender and collective memory of the 1990s Yugoslav wars in Serbia. Her work has appeared in the American National Biography, The Women’s Policy Journal of Harvard, The Society Pages, and the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies blog.
Carlo Tognato
Research Fellow
Carlo Tognato is currently Research Fellow at the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota and Faculty Fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University. He has been Senior Policy Fellow at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University as well as Director of the Center for Social Studies and Associate Professor of Sociology at the National University of Colombia, Bogota. His research focuses on civil reconstruction, civil degradation, civil courage, and civil intervention. His latest publications include The Courage for Civil Repair: Narrating the Righteous in International Migration (with B. N. Jaworsky and J. C. Alexander, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2020), Sociedad, cultura y la esfera civil (with Nelson Arteaga-Botello, FLACSO-Mexico, 2019), The Civil Sphere in Latin America (with J. C. Alexander, Cambridge University Press, 2018), and Cultural Agents Reloaded: The Legacy of Antanas Mockus (The President and Fellows of Harvard College, 2017).