Anita Ferrara is an Assistant Professor at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, University of IGalway, Ireland. She earned an honours BA in Political Science, International Relations at the University of Siena in 2001. She completed her Postgraduate Studies in International Studies and Diplomacy at the University of Florence in 2002. She obtained a Master's in Human Rights and Conflict Management at the Scuola Superiore Sant Anna, Pisa 2004. She successfully completed her PhD in Law at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, in 2012. She has been a Graduate Teaching Assistant and Teaching Fellow at SOAS, lecturing on post-conflict Justice and Reconciliation processes. Anita is the author of the book Assessing the Long-Term Impact of Truth Commissions: the Chilean Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Historical Perspective. The book is one of the first studies assessing the longer-term impact of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions. The book has been translated into Spanish and published in 2021 by the prestigious publisher Alberto Hurtado Univerity in Chile. Anita Ferrara's main research areas lie in Transitional Justice and Human Rights. Her research is strongly interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary, combining the field of Transitional Justice with Political Science, Memory Studies, Archival Studies, Dispute Resolution and Peace Building. Before her academic career, Anita worked for United Nations Agencies and NGOs in the field of human rights. She has worked at the Regional Office for South America of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Santiago, Chile and at the United Nations Development Programme in Gaborone, Botswana. She also worked at the World Organization against Torture (OMCT) as an intern of the Human Rights Defenders Programme in Geneva. Anita is fluent in English and Spanish and has a good working knowledge of Portuguese.

Her research interests focus on analyzing the legal, political, and ethical dilemmas that states and societies face in addressing the legacy of mass atrocity crimes. She is particularly interested in exploring the challenges of linking justice initiatives to peace in post-conflict societies.

Previous work investigated the impact and legacy of Truth and Reconciliation Commissions, with a specific emphasis on the Chilean case. 

She is currently investigating the role of documentation in transitional justice processes, with a partial focus on the Latin American Region and the current process in Colombia. 

Her latest work focused on exploring the impact of bottom-up approaches to memory-building after political violence and its legacy in contemporary Chile. 

She founded and leads the research cluster on Transitional Justice and Peacebuilding Research Cluster, which promotes research, debates and discussion on transitional justice and peace building in several contexts worldwide. 

For more information on current and past projects, please access the link below:

https://www.universityofgalway.ie/business-public-policy-law/school-of-law/research/researchclusters/transitionaljusticeandpeacebuildingresearchclustertjpr/