We welcome Dr Francesca Lessa to our academic staff

We are excited to announce that Dr Francesca Lessa will be joining the Institute of the Americas in September 2023 as Associate Professor in International Relations of the Americas.

Dr Lessa obtained her PhD in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Between 2011 and 2023, she held various roles at the University of Oxford, including, most recently, Departmental Lecturer in Latin American Studies and Development (2020-2023). Between 2016 and 2020, she was the recipient of the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie (Global) Fellowship of the European Commission, leading a project on Operation Condor in South America in the 1970s and efforts to achieve justice for such atrocities.

Her latest book, The Condor Trials: Transnational Repression and Human Rights in South America, was the winner of the 2023 Juan Méndez Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America and received an honourable mention for the 2023 Bryce Wood Book Award of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA).

Dr Lessa’s collaborative research with local partners in South America achieved high levels of impact: the Operation Condor project reached the final shortlist of the University of Oxford’s Vice Chancellor’s 2020 Innovation Awards and was highly commended in the O2RB Excellence in Impact Awards 2021 for improving routes to justice for victims of transnational human rights violations in South America. Dr Lessa has also been an expert witness before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, Rome’s Criminal Courts, and Chile’s Supreme Court.

At UCL Americas, she will be facilitating modules at UG and PGT levels, on themes such as international relations and security in the Americas. We are looking forward to adding her expertise to our already broad portfolio of key disciplines to study, research and understand the Americas of our time. ¡Bienvenida!

Links:

The Condor Trials: Transnational Repression and Human Rights in South America | book publisher's webpage

2023 Juan Méndez Book Award for Human Rights in Latin America | Duke Human Rights Center@the Franklin Humanities Institute

2023 Bryce Wood Book Award | Latin American Studies Association (LASA) webpage

Unravelling Operation Condor , a campaign of state terror in 1970s South America | project-related video on University of Oxford Youtube channel

Operation Condor | University of Oxford Research Impact webpage

O2RB Excellence in Impact Awards 2021 | University of Oxford news item

Inter-American Court of Human Rights | webpage

Rome’s Criminal Courts | University of Oxford news item

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Dr Francesca Lessa