Since 2020, the Institute hosts up to two postdoctoral fellows for yearlong research and teaching residencies. This competitive fellowship attracts applicants from around the world with PhDs in a variety of academic fields, and a strong documented interest in and potential for significant work in atrocity prevention that bridges the divide between academic research and prevention practice.
Academic Year 2025-2026
Sellah King'oro
EMAIL: skingoro@binghamton.edu
Sellah King’oro is a peace researcher & practitioner, gender specialist, and Advocate of the High Court of Kenya. She has served for fifteen years as Head of Research at the Kenyan National Cohesion and Integration Commission, where she coordinated research and interventions to enhance social cohesion. She has also contributed to reconciliation efforts across East and West Africa as a member of FEMWISE. Sellah trained military and police personnel for UN and AU peace operations when she was the Senior Gender Advisor at the British Peace Support Team (Africa), earning recognition from the UK Ministry of Defence. She holds a PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies with a gender focus, a Master of International Studies, a Bachelor of Laws, and a Bachelor of Education degrees from various Kenyan universities. She is also a recipient of the Rotary Peace Fellowship from Chulalongkorn University in Thailand and the Chevening Fellowship from Bradford University, UK. Her research interests include social cohesion, gender, peace, and security. Her recent work is published in the Africa Amani Journal and the Institute for Integrated Transitions (2025).
Paula Mantilla-Blanco
EMAIL: pmantillabla@binghamton.edu
Paula Mantilla-Blanco is a comparative education scholar focusing on education in crisis, conflict, and post-conflict contexts. Her work examines the role of formal and non-formal sites of education in teaching about and amid violence, and engaging youth in peacebuilding processes. Paula’s current research centers youth voices to analyze state-sponsored memory sites, such as museums and memorials, and how they contribute to shaping memories of conflict and expectations for the future in Colombia, her home country. She draws on mixed-methods (quantitative and qualitative) data from multiple stakeholders, including students, teachers, memory site staff, pedagogues, curators, representatives from victims’ organizations, and others. Paula received her PhD in Comparative and International Education with a disciplinary focus in Sociology from Columbia University. Her research has been funded by the National Academy of Education (NA/Ed) Spencer Fellowship and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) Peace Scholar Fellowship, among others. Her recent publications have been featured in Comparative Education Review and the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding.
Jenna Norosky
Yusuf Evirgen
EMAIL: yevirge1@binghamton.edu
Yusuf Evirgen is a political scientist specializing in contentious politics, coups, state repression, and human rights. His research investigates how autocratic regimes use strategic coercion both visible and covert to maintain authority, especially in post-coup contexts. Drawing on a mixed-methods approach that combines novel macro-level datasets, automated text analysis, and micro-level fieldwork, his work advances understanding of how leaders survive political crises by adapting their repression.
His broader research agenda contributes methodologically and substantively to atrocity prevention by developing fine-grained data on state repression. This includes projects that leverage web scraping and large language models to map local human rights abuses in Turkey. One of his ongoing projects, "From Fire to Fury: The Mobilizing Effects of Village Burning in Turkish Counterinsurgency," offers a novel micro-level analysis of how the destruction of Kurdish villages in 1990s Turkey influenced patterns of political mobilization. By triangulating satellite imagery, NGO reports, agricultural production data, and electoral outcomes, the study uncovers how state repression initially suppressed but eventually catalyzed mobilization among displaced populations. Yusuf’s scholarship has been recognized with multiple fellowships and awards, including the Best Faculty Paper Award from the Northeastern Political Science Association. His work appears in Conflict Management and Peace Science.
