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OUR MEMBERS
We are a group of volunteers of different nationalities from all around the world. Our members coordinated by the UK team can be found from Mexico to Slovenia, Switzerland to the USA, and we work closely with our members in Colombia.
Wherever we are in the world, we all share a passion to create and promote spaces for dialogue so we can help others to develop critical awareness of current events and developments in Colombia and form a distinctive voice to support peace.
We know that peace building is not easy and we work hard every day to give our best, using ReD’s principles to guide us as we continue our activities and publications.
Get to know our UK members below or our members in Colombia here. Please get in touch if you would like to find out more about us, or if you would like to join us.
Andrei Gómez Suárez
Co-founder of Embrace Dialogue (ReD), director of ReD Colombia (2016-2018). Andrei is Senior Research Fellow in Reconciliation and Peacebuilding, Centre of Religion, Reconciliation and Peace, University of Winchester. He is also Honorary Research Associate both at the UCL Institute of the Americas and at the Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies, University of Bristol, and Senior Research Consultant at Positive Negatives. He is author of Genocide, Geopolitics and Transnational Networks (Routledge, 2015), El Triunfo del No (Ícono, 2016) and producer of La Confianza and Jessica: Coca Growing, Stigmatisation, Violence and Development in Colombia.
Laura Acosta Hankin
ESRC-funded PhD candidate at the University of Bristol on the Security, Conflict and Human Rights pathway. Laura’s research has explored the relationship between the reincorporation of the FARC and how identities are being constructed in this process. Not one to be put in a box, she has had a varied history from a background in mathematics, to working with asylum seekers, to teaching in secondary schools. Creatively, as an artist she finds expression through painting to navigate emotions, and open new ways to connect with others. Although she grew up in the UK, she has embraced her Colombian roots and her two ‘tierritas’, currently working from the Colombian countryside.
Gwen Burnyeat
Junior Research Fellow in Anthropology at Merton College, University of Oxford. Gwen holds a PhD in Anthropology from University College London (UCL). She is author of Chocolate, Politics and Peace-Building: An Ethnography of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, Colombia (Palgrave Macmillan 2018), and producer of the award-winning ethnographic documentary Chocolate of Peace (2016).
Alejandro Posada Téllez
PhD candidate in International Relations at the University of Oxford and Associate Lecturer in Strategic Studies at the University of Reading. Alejandro’s research explores the intersection between the politics of victimhood and peacebuilding, focusing on the experiences of Colombia and Sri Lanka in the aftermath of war. He holds a BA in Politics and International Relations from SOAS; a Master in International Security from Sciences Po PSIA; and an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics.
Bettina Latuff
BA in Politics and International Relations (University of Exeter). Bettina’s degree focused on conflict and security studies, with her final year dissertation exploring how a prospective transitional justice process in Venezuela could learn from Colombia’s 2016 peace deal. Bettina has worked with NGOs and international organisations, and is driven by facilitating dialogue and migrant rights.
Daniela Ramirez Correa
BA in Philology and Languages: English (National University, Colombia). Daniela has been an English teacher at different institutions, such as the National University of Colombia and Ethical Method: language solutions. She has also worked as a proofreader and an ENG/SPA translator for Entrelibros E-book solutions. She is passionate about language and cultures, and she believes in the transformative power of education. She is currently working as a Modern Language Assistant in England, bringing Spanish students into contact with Latin American culture, as well as exploring different perspectives on the history of conflict in the Hispanic world.
Eduardo F. Gutiérrez González
Doctoral candidate at the University of Oxford (Blackfriars Hall). Eduardo is seeking to contribute to peacebuilding from theological and philosophical reflection. After studying philosophy —BA and MA—, Eduardo worked in the faculties of Philosophy and Political Science at U. Javeriana before doing an MSt in Science & Religion at Oxford. His current research is funded by Porticus and focuses on the role of imagination in belief formation and transformation, and its use for fostering peace in Colombia. Eduardo loves world-building in all forms of art, especially in literature, and has a long obsession with the power of dialogue and analogical reasoning.
Germán Otálora-Gallego
MSc in Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding (Durham University). Germán’s research focused on the potential of the 2016 Colombian peace accord —in particular its transitional justice mechanisms— as a tool for reconciliation that can transform the unequal structures that have led to decades of conflict in the country. Before coming to the UK to study as a Chevening scholar, he worked for seven years (2011-2018) as an adviser in the Colombian Foreign Ministry.
Laura Alejandra Chaparro Alvis
BA in Law (Libre University) and legal practitioner in Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law. Laura has worked for a variety of NGOs and state agencies in Colombia, helping women, ethnic minorities, and victims organisations in demanding their human rights through legal actions and communal norms of procedures. She has also carried out risk assessments to suggest protective measures appropriate to the context, identity and needs of vulnerable populations.
Lucija Vihar
BSc in Psychology (University of Edinburgh) and MSc in Behaviour Change (UCL). Lucija is passionate about conflict resolution and how our understanding of human psychology and behavioural science could aid in the process. Enthusiastic about connecting people, she is responsible for bringing new members into ReD UK, as well as thinking about how to embed the Culture of Dialogue into everything we do as an organisation.
María Fernanda Olarte-Sierra
Post-doctoral Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant holder at the University of Amsterdam. Mafe is working on a project that addresses the role of judicial and humanitarian forensic knowledge in co-producing collective accounts of violence. She is a medical anthropologist and an anthropologist of science. Her work focuses on knowledge production practices and how they shape experiences of bodies, citizenship and social relationships, being forensic practices of victims’ identification of armed conflict is her main point of entry.
Pete Watson
Research Associate Fellow at the University of Leeds. Pete gained his PhD in Latin American Studies from the University of Sheffield, investigating the use of football for nation-building in Colombia during the presidency of Juan Manuel Santos with a focus on football as part of the peace process with the FARC. He has discussed his research on Latin American football history and politics on a number of podcasts including Colombia Calling and These Football Times. Pete is a former Spanish teacher and writer of Spanish A-level and IB resources and also coaches cricket.
Sebastián Fonseca
MD from Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, MA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics of Health from UCL (UK), and PhD in Global Health and Social Medicine from King’s College London (UK). Sebastian is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the project “Connecting 3 Worlds: Socialism, Medicine and Global Health after WW2” (C3W), funded by the Wellcome Trust and based at the University of Exeter. At C3W, he integrates the Latin American team, advancing a critical analysis of ideas and practices on health within territories heavily influenced by the FARC between 1960s-1990s. His research takes part of the post-conflict agenda in Colombia, making connections with echoing guerrilla organisations abroad.
Theresa Bachmann
PhD candidate in International Conflict Analysis at the University of Kent at Canterbury, researching expectations of and experiences with inclusive peacebuilding in the implementation of the 2016 peace accords in Colombia’s most war-affected territories. Passionate about improving the lives of victims of violence, she additionally trained as a professional trauma advisor in her native Germany. Theresa has a B.A. in “Latin American Studies” from the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, and a binational M.A. in “Peace and Conflict Studies” from the Universities of Kent and Marburg.