Cath Collins

UU

Cath Collins is Professor of Transitional Justice, Ulster University, Northern Ireland and Director of the Transitional Justice Observatory, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile.  A Latin America specialist, she is a political scientist, translator and youth and community worker engaged with post-dictatorship prosecutions of crimes against humanity in Latin America since 1996. Her books in English include Transitional Justice in Latin America,  Routledge, 2016 (co-edited); The Politics of Memory: Chile from Pinochet to Bachelet, Lynne Rienner, 2013 (co-edited) and Post-transitional Justice? Human Rights Trials in Chile and El Sal¬vador, Penn State, 2010.  
She divides her time between Belfast and Chile, working on aspects of truth, justice and reparations including the search for the disappeared.  She has been special adviser to the Chilean forensic service and currently sits on the international advisory committee to the Colombian state search office.  She is outreach coordinator for the pro bono legal team of Chile’s Association of Relatives of Victims of Political Execution, and has co-led memory initiatives including joint Belfast-Santiago murals projects. 
She previously lectured in international relations at the Universidad Diego Portales, Chile and is now associate researcher at its Law School human rights centre. https://derechoshumanos.udp.cl/observatorio-de-justicia-transicional/   She has done outreach, consultancy, training and editing work for a range of international organisations, NGOs and foundations, and was formerly Latin America Fellow at Chatham House, London and lecturer in Latin American politics at the University of London.  Her first and advanced degrees are from the Universities of Cambridge, London, and Lancaster, and Queens’ Belfast.