NYU Wagner

Louis Bickford, a political scientist, has consulted with human rights activists, opposition movements and governmental and non-governmental organizations on strategies for confronting the legacies of past human rights abuses in numerous countries including Cambodia, Mexico, and Nigeria. He has done policy work on democratic transition for the UN Special Envoy to Myanmar; consulted with the UN Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK); and developed legislation for the Paraguayan truth commission. As the Director of Networks and Capacity-Building, he manages the ICTJ's global network of NGOs and individuals involved in transitional justice and oversees fellowship programs in Cape Town, South Africa; Santiago, Chile; and Brussels, Belgium, as well as developing training materials and capacity-building programs with a variety of international partners. 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 professor 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 help conceptualize and is a contributor to the The Art of Truthtelling After Authoritarian Rule (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005). He has taught seminars and courses at McGill University, University of Wisconsin, Madison, the graduate program in Political Science at Brooklyn College, and the University of Chile.