Why do genocides occur and how can analyzing genocide prevent future violence? Over the past few decades, researchers have analyzed why genocides occur in an effort to prevent future violence. In this talk, Dr. Hollie Nyseth provides an overview of the current state of knowledge regarding the causes of genocide. Dr. Nyseth is an associate professor at the Ohio State University, whose work assesses why and how genocide happens and how countries rebuild in the aftermath. She will discuss how state-level factors influence the onset of genocide while highlighting how predictive models use the information on these factors to anticipate where genocide and other atrocities may occur in the future. She delves into the community-level factors that shape how genocides unfold differently in distinct communities, and why individuals participate in violence. To integrate research on the state, community, and individual factors that cause genocide, Dr. Nyseth draws from in-depth fieldwork in Rwanda. 

Dr. Nyseth is currently working on two major research projects, funded by two grants from the National Science Foundation. These projects examine Rwanda’s post-genocide gacaca courts and the reentry and reintegration processes of those sentenced to prison by these courts.

In 2018, she was awarded the Ruth Shonle Cavan Young Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology.  In 2017, she received the Emerging Scholar Prize from the International Association of Genocide Scholars. She has also received the Ohio State College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teaching Award and the Ohio State Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching Nyseth teaches classes on global crime, violence, and terrorism, and created and led a study abroad class called Genocide and Its Aftermath in Rwanda. She is also the Global Editor in Chief of the International Association of Genocide Scholars Policy Brief Initiative and serves as a consultant for a federal instability and atrocity prediction task force.

Join us in person at Wise Temple on Sunday, March 20, at 1 p.m. EST. for the Hornstein Lecture. The presentation will also be livestreamed via Zoom.