Bonnie Weir has been named the inaugural executive director of the Center for Peace and the Global Good at the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs. The new center will support faculty, visiting fellows, scholars, and students working on a wide range of issues, such as peacebuilding, human rights, global health, conflict resolution, peace and reconciliation social entrepreneurship, and the applied principles of strategic nonviolence.
“The center will be nimble and its thematic areas will be broad in order to respond to the state of the world as it evolves as well as to support the interests of faculty and students,” said Dr. Weir. “It’s a big tent, intentionally. It can encompass anything from human rights to global health to social innovation to post-conflict reconciliation and institutions. It touches on urgent areas of concern that we all face as engaged global citizens.”
At the Jackson School, Dr. Weir is a senior lecturer of global affairs and the founder and director of the Peacebuilding Initiative. Prior to her new role, she served as the school’s assistant dean of undergraduate education and co-director of Yale’s certificate program in human rights. Earlier in her tenure, she was a senior lecturer of political science and director of undergraduate studies for the program in ethics, politics, and economics.
Dr. Weir focuses her research on political violence and post-conflict and group identity dynamics with an empirical concentration on Northern Ireland. Her current projects investigate whether and how sectarianism affects political behavior, shifting hostilities in post-conflict landscapes, and the consequences of minority rights provisions.
Dr. Weir is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, where she majored in political science. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago.