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Leadership Team
Building a Global Language of Genocide Prevention
The Lemkin Institute prides itself on being a gender positive workplace that nurtures peoples' talents and skills while supporting the full expression of their individuality and humanity. We find inspiration in others' unique gifts, whether they work within our organization or as partners in genocide prevention, and this sustains all of us in creating a workplace of sympathy, solidarity, gratitude, and joy.
Executive Committee
Elisa von Joeden-Forgey, PhD
Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director
Former Endowed Chair in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Keene State College, Keene, NH, USA and Dr. Marsha Raticoff Grossman Professor of Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Stockton University, NJ, USA. Expert in genocide, gender, prevention, and the history of colonialism. BA in History, Columbia University, New York City; MA, PhD in History, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
Lily Nellans
Co-Executive Director
Lily is an independent scholar researching the relationship between genocide and anti-trans and anti-queer violence. Her pathbreaking article "A Queer(er) Genocide Studies" was published in 2020 in Genocide Studies and Prevention. She has contributed to multiple international projects on queering genocide and R2P. Lily holds a BA in International Conflict Studies from Western Kentucky University and an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics.
Affiliated Scholars and Partners
Peter McBride
Affiliated Scholar, Mental Health Literacy
Post-conflict mental health expert. BSc (Hons), Applied Biology, John Moore University, Liverpool; BD (Hons), Systematic Theology, Aberdeen University; MSW, Queens University Belfast; DipSW Diploma, Queens University Belfast; Advanced Diploma in the Management of Psychological Trauma, Nottingham Trent University
Juan Giarrizzo
Partner, OSINT practitioner and CFT competitor
Juan Giarrizzo is a Technical Manager, OSINT practitioner and CTF competitor, with a passion for Information Security. He has been involved in several cases as principal OSINT investigator, for evidence verification and preservation in human rights violation cases. Additionally, he has collaborated as advisor and subject matter expert for the Latin America region, providing supporting intelligence and generating situational reports for different organizations. Juan is responsible for our OSINT methodology development and leads the investigatons for many of the Lemkin Institute initiatives. Additionally, he is responsible of providing OpSec methodologies to our collaborators around the world to protect their digital assets and personal safety.
Professional Fellows
Chip Sinton
Professional Fellow, Research and Social Strategy
Chip Sinton joins the Lemkin Institute in its inaugural class of Professional Fellows; a committed internationalist, he holds a political science degree from Hamilton College with a focus on ethnonationalisms, tech justice, and the function of propaganda, misinformation, and narrative integrity. Chip has worn a variety of private sector hats (product management, operations, process analytics, consulting, copy, and market analysis) in the USA and China, and has a long track record in liberation movements, co-authoring a Student Rights Handbook w/ the ACLU and serving as President of the National Youth Rights Association before age 18; after a surprise recognition by the UN Youth Assembly, he set out on a multi-year project to figure out how to be a little more chill and, with any luck, a good friend.
His primary skills are in rapid response, public speaking, communications, research, tactical implementation, and social strategy. In this decade, he’s proud to have worked with Reclaim Philadelphia’s Mass Liberation Task Force, in coalition with the Shift the Narrative Project, CADBI, Carmela Libre and Philly Tech Justice, and as a long-term member of the Philadelphia Childcare Collective. A passionate believer that freedom is always and only freedom of action, he has felt most free in moments of queer togetherness and alone with literature; other highlights include contributing to a variety of refugee and migrant projects incl. time at City Plaza in Athens, Greece, presenting as an independent scholar at Theorizing The Web, and having received an Anuvad Fellowship to experiment with contemporary poetics in Assam, India.
Volunteers
Lyusi (Lucy) Mirzoyan
Raised in Switzerland, Lyusi holds a BSc degree in Criminology and Psychology from Keele University, with her dissertation centred around Forgiveness and Restorative Justice. Throughout her academic journey, her primary focus was on state crimes, crimes against humanity and the profound implications and challenges associated with acknowledging historical injustices. Driven by a profound commitment to justice and accountability, she is motivated to contribute to the Lemkin Institute by her earnest desire to convey the unfiltered truth about genocides.
Swara Bhatt
Swara is a third-year undergraduate student at American University currently pursuing a B.A. in International Studies (with concentrations in Europe/Eurasia & Global Inequality and Development) alongside a minor in Spanish Language and Area Studies. Fluent in five languages, she plans on attending either business or law school in the future, with an international focus. After reading about the alarming tendencies in countries throughout the world today that indicate the indicators building up to genocide, she felt obliged to do something and engage in work that would better chronicle and raise notice to these occurrences.