- Location
- Travel
- Hotel
- Program
- Participants
- Live Stream
- In-Person Registration
- The 2026 Nadia Rubaii Memorial Award
Welcome to I-GMAP's 2026 International Forum, Frontiers of Prevention
Friday-Saturday, April 10 & 11, 2026
***In Person with Live Streaming***
Last Year's Forum
Since 2017, Frontiers of Prevention, I-GMAP’s annual international forum, has brought academic researchers and prevention practitioners from governments, international organizations, and civil society to Binghamton’s Downtown Campus for two days of conversation, sharing notes and experiences, and forming new professional connections and networks.
Unlike more familiar academic conferences, Frontiers of Prevention has a workshop format. Over the meeting's two days, several extended thematic sessions, without formal presentations, allow participants and audience members to explore topics in depth, to make connections among different thematic panels, and to pursue collaborations and test new ideas.
Frontiers of Prevention includes the annual Nadia Rubaii Prize and Lecture, recognizing an atrocity prevention practitioner of exceptional courage, compassion, and dedication. Conference participants and guests are warmly invited to attend.
Frontiers of Prevention Location
Frontiers of Prevention takes place in the Binghamton University Downtown Center (UDC). This is the university's single-building campus in downtown Binghamton, and is not
to be confused with Binghamton University's main (Vestal, NY) campus, which is located approximately five miles west of Binghamton, NY.
UDC Address: 67 Washington St, Binghamton, NY 13902
The conference will be live streamed for those who are not able to attend in person.
Travel to Binghamton
Travel By Air:
You will want to fly into either Syracuse Hancock International Airport (SYR) or Ithaca
Tompkins International Airport (ITH). Both of these have jet service from multiple
airlines. Both Syracuse and Ithaca airports are approximately one hour by car from
Binghamton.
Travel By Bus:
Greyhound offers regular bus service from New York City's Port Authority Bus Terminal
to Binghamton. OurBus has also started providing buses directly from John F. Kennedy
Airport to Binghamton University. The travel time is approximately 3.5 hours.
Travel By Car:
Travel time by car from New York City or Philadelphia is approximately 3 hours; from
Boston approximately 4.5 hours, and from Washington D.C. approximately 5 hours.
Hotel
The official hotel for Frontiers of Prevention is the Holiday Inn, located in downtown Binghamton:
Holiday Inn Website
Phone number: (+1) 607.722.1212
Address: 2-8 Hawley St, Binghamton, New York 13901
Please contact us if you'd like to make a reservation under our discounted rate.
Frontiers of Prevention Program
Friday, April 10
| 8:30 - 9:00 | Registration and Breakfast |
| 9:00 - 9:30 | Welcoming Remarks |
| 9:30 - 11:00 | Panel 1: Opening Experts
|
| 11:00 - 11:30 | Break and Refreshments |
| 11:30 - 1:00 |
Panel 2: Alternative Accountability Mechanisms
|
| 1:00 - 2:30 | Lunch |
| 2:30 - 4:00 |
Panel 3: ICE and the Military: State Violence in the U.S.
|
| 4:30 - 6:00 |
Nadia Rubaii Memorial Award Presentation and Lecture Presented to M. Gessen, The New York Times Opinion Columnist and National Book Award-winning Author Lecture "What a Dissident Sees" |
| 6:00 - 7:00 | Reception with wine and appetizers |
Saturday, April 11
| 8:30 - 9:00 | Breakfast |
| 9:00 - 10:30 |
Panel 4: Transitional Justice in Syria
|
| 10:30 - 11:00 | Break and Refreshments |
| 11:00 - 12:30 |
Panel 5: Introducing the PREVENT Project
|
| 12:30 - 2:00 | Lunch |
| 2:00 - 3:30 |
Panel 6: Safer Havens: Protecting Ukrainian Refugees in Romania
|
| 3:30 - 4:00 | Break and refreshments |
| 4:00 - 5:30 |
Panel 7: Art in Social Transformation and Healing
|
Participants
We are currently inviting participants and will post short biographies here once they are confirmed.
Annie Bird
Annie Bird has over 20 years of experience in atrocities prevention and global peace and security. Previously, she was Senior Program Officer at Wellspring Philanthropic Fund and an instructor at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. She also served as Senior Policy Advisor at the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, and as a fellow at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum's Center for the Prevention of Genocide. She’s had roles at the International Center for Transitional Justice, UNICEF, Benetech, and NGOs in East Timor, Argentina, and Senegal. Her book US Foreign Policy on Transitional Justice was published by Oxford University Press in 2015. She holds a B.A. in Peace and Conflict Studies from UC Berkeley, an LL.M. in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex, and a Ph.D. in International Relations from the London School of Economics.
Andrew Boyle
Andrew Boyle is Senior Counsel at States United Democracy Center. His previous positions include: Counsel in the Liberty and National Security Program of the Brennan Center for Justice, where he focused on presidential emergency powers; Democracy Fellow in the Brennan Center's Democracy Program; and law clerk for a federal appellate judge.
Internationally, Boyle has worked investigating and prosecuting atrocity crimes at the Kosovo Specialist Prosecutor's Office, and at the UN Assistance to the Khmer Rouge Trials. He also worked in the trial chambers of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Boyle is on the Executive Council of the American Society of International Law, and on the editorial board of the International Legal Materials journal. He has also been a Practitioner in Residence at the Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, has lectured on international criminal law to Ukrainian Prosecutors, and served as an NGO Observer to the Guantanamo Military Commissions.
Anatolie Coșciug
Anatolie Coșciug is a PhD Lecturer in Sociology and vice-director at the Romanian Center for Comparative Migration Studies, interested in migration to and from Romania and other related phenomena. His publications include articles in some of the most important international migration studies publishing outlets (Migration Studies, JEMS, CEEMR, etc.) and social science ones (Palgrave, Anthem, Lit Verlag, etc). Anatolie was also involved in consultancy, research, and training projects with migration-related international organizations (UNHCR, WB, IOM), universities/research centers (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, PRIO, Bielefeld University, Bucharest University, Tel Aviv University), NGOs (Groupe SOS, HEKS, CDMIR, AIPG, etc.), and public institutions (Romanian Immigration Inspectorate, Department for the Relation with Romanians Abroad, etc.).
Antonia David
Antonia David is the Legal Director at InterJust, where she oversees the organization’s global litigation strategy, guiding high-impact investigations and universal jurisdiction cases to hold perpetrators of atrocity crimes accountable. She leads the legal team across multiple geographies and thematic areas.
Previously, she served as the Senior Program Manager at Clooney Foundation for Justice’s Docket initiative, overseeing litigation strategy, global projects, and internships-fellowships program. Previously, as a litigation associate at Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, she focused on complex civil litigation and her pro bono practice included international criminal law, human rights law, and U.S. immigration law cases. She earned her law degree from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law where she worked on projects related to torture in detention centers in the U.S. context, domestic international crimes cases in Western Africa, and the protection against threats to human rights defenders.
Tanya Domi
Tanya Domi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and is an affiliate faculty member of the Harriman Institute where she has taught in the Balkan Studies program. Prior, Domi served in the United States Army for 15 years and later worked as a Congressional aide and military policy advisor to the late Congressman Frank McCloskey. She also worked internationally on issues related to democratic transitional development. She has expanded her research to include genocide, conflict related sexual violence and prevention of atrocity crimes. Domi was seconded by the U.S. State Department to the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina Domi is a Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the New Lines Institute for Policy and Strategy, a former Senior Non-Resident Fellow at the Alliance for Peacebuilding, former President of the Advisory Board of the Post Conflict Research Center, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina; and is currently a board member of Vasfije's Choice.
Tibi Galis
Before joining AIPG in 2006, Dr. Galis worked as an Associate Researcher for the Parliament of the United Kingdom, helping develop the country’s position as the UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide. He also served as rapporteur for the Swedish government at the 2004 Stockholm International Forum on the Prevention of Genocide. Dr. Galis earned a Ph.D. from the Strassler Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Clark University focusing on transitional justice. He also holds an M.A. in International Politics and Political Development from the University of Manchester and a B.A. in Law and Political Science from Babes-Bolyai University in Romania, his native country.
Gabriela Ghindea
Currently based in Bucharest, Gabriela Ghindea coordinates all aspects of AIPG’s Mediterranean Basin Programs, including developing and expanding relationships with State and civil society actors, developing and guiding programs, teaching in AIPG programs, in addition to regularly liaising with the Auschwitz Institute's offices around the world. Ghindea is also the Program Director of AIPG’s Global Raphael Lemkin Seminar for Genocide Prevention.
She earned a B.A. in History and another in Political Science from Babeș-Bolyai University,
in Cluj-Napoca, an M.A. in European Studies from the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische
Hochschule Aachen, and a Ph.D. in International Relations from Babeș-Bolyai University,
with a focus on the Cold War and the German Ostpolitik. Interested in memory cultures
and civic education, Dr. Ghindea conducted research and pedagogical projects in Romania,
Austria, and Germany. In parallel with her academic research, she worked for the German
Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and as a referent and project manager within the
Teaching Liaison Department of the Goethe-Institut.
Zahara Gómez
Zahara Gómez is an artist and photographer whose practice operates at the intersection of art and activism. Her work focuses on processes of memory, justice, and truth in relation to forced disappearance and political-social violence in Latin America.
Through research-based and collective creation projects, she collaborates with families of disappeared persons, search collectives, and human rights organizations, exploring the materiality of memory and violence through socially engaged visual languages. In 2007, she initiated Tesoros, a multidisciplinary project addressing violence and forced disappearance in the region.
In 2018, she began Recetario para la memoria with the Rastreadoras del Fuerte, a collective and co-authored project that uses cooking and recipes as tools for memory, dialogue, and resistance. The project currently brings together more than 150 participants from three countries and has unfolded through four editions, as well as exhibitions and collective actions.
She is a member of Women Photograph and Fotoféminas.
Tanya Greene
Tanya Greene, Director of Human Rights Watch’s US Program, leads on exposing and addressing human rights violations in the United States. Greene is an attorney with over 25 years of experience in advocacy, policy reform, community organizing, partnerships, and litigation aimed at challenging racist structures and systems in the US.
Greene represented indigent capital clients across the country; throughout her career she has developed highly-regarded criminal defense education programs nationwide. Greene was the ACLU Advocacy and Policy Counsel; her work contributed to death penalty repeal in a number of states. Greene has served with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers as the Death Penalty Resources Counsel, on the Board of Directors, and co-chair of the Death Penalty Committee.
She won the Reebok International Human Rights Award for her work against the death penalty, has made numerous media appearances, and has taught and guest-lectured at law schools and colleges.
Rebecca Hamilton
Rebecca Hamilton is a Professor at Washington College of Law, where she teaches international law, national security law, and criminal law. She was American University’s 2025 Scholar/Teacher of the Year, a 2024 U.S. Fulbright Scholar, a 2020 Council on Foreign Relations Fellow, and a 2019 Pulitzer Center grantee.Her book, Fighting for Darfur: Public action and the struggle to stop genocide, examines the impact of citizen activism on policymaking in the face of unfolding atrocities. Her work draws on her experience in the prosecution of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, as well as her work in conflict zones as a journalist. Previously, Professor Hamilton served as a lawyer in the prosecutorial division of the International Criminal Court. Prior to academia she was a foreign correspondent for the Washington Post. She has written for Foreign Affairs, The New Yorker, Foreign Policy and The Atlantic, and she frequently provides expert commentary for CNN, PBS Newshour, and MSCBC.
Leila Hilal
Leila Hilal is an independent researcher, analyst and lawyer with an expertise in
international human rights, peacebuilding, and foreign policy. She serves as a
senior researcher and managing editor with Security in Context. She previously
directed New America’s Middle East Task Force in Washington, D.C. and advised
The Carter Center’s Conflict Resolution Program.
Over the past two decades Leila has designed, advised, and published field-
building research and programming on national dialogue, constitution-making,
governance, accountability and transitional justice. She also facilitated large
transnational forums dedicated to informing international policy on Middle East
conflicts.
Leila is a former legal advisor to Palestinian negotiators on refugees and
transitional justice and law clerk to the Constitutional Court of South Africa. She
holds a J.D. from SUNY Buffalo School of Law and an L.L.M from Harvard Law
School.
Nousha Kabawat
Nousha Kabawat is head of ICTJ’s Syria program and has led its programmatic work since 2016, while also providing support to initiatives in Lebanon and Libya. She has expertise in displacement, detainees and the missing, strengthening civil society, empowering youth, mental health and psychosocial support, and accountability.
Currently, Kabawat is an Atlantic Fellow for the Social and Economic Equity Program at the London School of Economics. Previously, she served as a program officer for Syria at George Mason University’s Center for World Religions, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution. She was an associate producer for Frontline’s Emmy-nominated documentary Inside Assad’s Syria.
In 2013, she founded Project Amal ou Salam, an organization that empowers Syrian refugee children through education and trauma-based care.
Kabawat’s work has been recognized by the United States Institute of Peace and featured in National Geographic, BBC News, and USA Today. Nousha holds a master's degree in Conflict Analysis and Resolution from George Mason University and a graduate certificate in Global Journalism from the University of Toronto.
Sebastían Lippez-De Castro
Dean and Associate Professor of the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, in Bogotá, Colombia. Dean Lippez-De Castro earned his Doctoral degree from Binghamton University, where he also received his Master of Public Administration, and a Local Government Management Certificate. He also holds a degree in Political Science and as Specialist in Municipal Government by Pontificia Universidad Javeriana. His main teaching and publication areas include research on the relationship between Intrastate Armed Conflicts -as well as the mass atrocities such conflicts carry-, with subnational government’s authority, governmental decentralization, and different issues affecting governance and democracy. He is part of the leadership team of the Permanent Symposium Educating for Democracy.
Dean Lippez-De Castro oversees two salient programs: the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Peace and Reconciliation Program, which facilitates peacebuilding processes with rural and victims’ communities hosting former combatants; and the Institute for Human Rights and Peacebuilding Alfredo Vasquez Carrizosa, specially its work on restorative justice in the Colombian 2016 Peace Agreement.
David Mandel-Anthony
David Mandel-Anthony served as the Deputy to the Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice in the Office of Global Criminal Justice (GCJ) at the U.S. Department of State. Previously, he served as Acting Director and Senior Advisor in GCJ. He shaped the inaugural Atrocities Prevention Board, and served on the first APB-led risk assessment mission to Burundi. He has represented the U.S. as a senior diplomat in official travel to over a dozen countries.
In GCJ, he directed global accountability policy and oversaw multimillion-dollar grants for justice and accountability programs. He has more than 15 years of experience working on foreign policy, human rights, and transitional justice at leading non-governmental organizations, the U.S. Congress, and international courts and institutions. As an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University Law School, he taught an advanced seminar on transitional justice and has published on emerging trends about accountability for atrocity crimes.
Lucas Massuco
Lucas Massuco is a political scientist and holds a Master's degree in Public
Policy Evaluation from the University of Entre Ríos. His main work is carried out
at Rosario's Memory Museum as Director since the open selection process held
in 2022. He also teaches at the School of Political Science at the National
University of Rosario in the courses Introduction to Political Science and Public
Administration: issues and problems. His main areas of expertise are public
management, studies related to the processes of memory, truth and justice in
Argentina and in the Latin American region, public policy analysis, international
cooperation and museology.
Hollie Nyseth Nzitatira
Dr. Hollie Nyseth Nzitatira is a Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Ohio State University whose research centers on genocide, transitional justice, and human rights. She earned her Ph.D. in sociology and human rights from the University of Minnesota in 2014 and has since published more than 70 peer‑reviewed articles. She is the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook on Atrocity Crimes and has received major early‑career awards from both the International Association of Genocide Scholars and the American Society of Criminology. In 2023, she received the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) Engaged Scholar Award for her work forecasting atrocities. Her recent book with Oxford University Press examines the reentry and reintegration of Rwandans who completed prison sentences for genocide-related crimes. She has conducted hundreds of interviews with individuals involved in atrocities and is writing a book on rescue during genocide. She also leads the IAGS Policy Brief Initiative, consults for museums and nonprofits, and develops educational materials on genocide. Her work has been funded by the NSF, NEH, and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.
Efrén Olivares
Efrén C. Olivares is an immigrant, human rights lawyer, and writer. He immigrated to the United States from Mexico as a teenager and was the first in his family to attend college. He has represented clients in federal and state courts, and international human rights bodies. He currently serves as Vice President of Litigation and Legal Strategy at the National Immigration Law Center, where he leads a team of lawyers and advocates working for immigration laws and practices that respect human rights. He previously worked at the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Texas Civil Rights Project, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and Fulbright & Jaworski LLP.
His writings on immigration policy have been published by the New York Times, USA Today, and Newsweek, and he has testified before Congress and at briefings on Capitol Hill about immigration and border policies. In 2025, he was named to Time Magazine’s 100NEXT list.
Efrén is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and Yale Law School.
Razan Rashidi
Razan Rashidi is the Executive Director of The Syria Campaign, a human rights organization dedicated to assisting Syria's heroes in their battle for freedom, justice, and democracy. She has nearly two decades of experience working in development and humanitarian programs, advocacy campaigns, and cultural initiatives to drive social change. Since 2005, Ms. Rashidi has worked as a media specialist in a variety of United Nations offices across Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan, and as a consultant with numerous other Syrian and international organizations in the field of media trainings. Ms. Rashidi earned a bachelor's degree in International Relations from the University of Damascus and an MA degree in Global Media and Transnational Communications from Goldsmiths University in London.
Puleng Segalo
Puleng Segalo is a Fulbright scholar, National Research Foundation rated researcher, and a professor of psychology currently holding the position of Chief Albert Luthuli Research Chair at the University of South Africa. Her areas of specialization include Community and Social Psychology, Historical Trauma, Gender, and Public Health. She conducts research that centers trauma and gender Justice – she has collaborated with scholars both locally and internationally and has worked with the Canadian Museum of Human Rights, Constitution Hill in South Africa, and the Colombian Embassy on work focusing on healing, forgiveness and reconciliation.
Segalo has won both national and international awards in recognition for her research excellence, including the Young Women in Science Prize awarded to her by the National Department of Science and Technology and as a first runner up in the distinguished woman researcher category; the UNISA Chancellor’s award for excellence in Research, and the City University of New York Alumni of the Decade award.
Zaina Ujayli
Zaina Ujayli is a scholar of Arab American literature, media, and history. She is finishing her PhD in American Studies & Ethnicity at the University of Southern California, where her dissertation examines how Syrian women used print culture and public performance to advocate for their communities in the twentieth century. Her work has been published in venues including American Periodicals, ArabLit Quarterly, and The New Arab. She currently serves on the board of the Arab American Studies Association.
Before beginning her doctoral studies, Zaina worked with Syrians for Truth and Justice as the organization's Communications Officer, where she managed the organization's communications and contributed to the revision and translation of investigative reports documenting human rights violations in Syria into English. She also assisted in drafting grant reports, statements with partner organizations, and a series of papers on topics related to constitution-building in Syria, including transitional justice. She continues to support the organization's work as a volunteer.
Benjamin Valentino
Benjamin Valentino is a Professor of Government at Dartmouth College and Chair of the Department of Government. His research interests include the causes and consequences of violent conflict and American foreign and security policies. He serves as co-director the Government Department Honors Program. He is also the faculty coordinator for the War and Peace Studies Program at Dartmouth's Dickey Center for International Understanding. Valentino's book, Final Solutions: Mass Killing and Genocide in the 20th Century, received the Edgar S. Furniss Book Award for making an exceptional contribution to the study of national and international security. His work has appeared in outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, The American Political Science Review, Security Studies, International Organization, Public Opinion Quarterly, World Politics and The Journal of Politics. He is currently working on several research projects focusing on public opinion on the use of force and developing early warning models of large-scale violence against civilians.
Ernesto Verdeja
Ernesto Verdeja is an Associate Professor of Peace Studies and Global Politics in the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, Keough School of Global Affairs, and a concurrent Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame. He has published on the causes and prevention of genocide and mass atrocities, genocide and mass atrocities early warning, social media and mass violence, transitional justice, and artificial intelligence and violence early warning. Dr. Verdeja served two terms on the advisory board of the International Association of Genocide Scholars and was a member of the United States Institute of Peace’s RESOLVE Research Advisory Group. He also regularly consults with governments, intergovernmental organizations, and human rights organizations on atrocity prevention and transitional justice.
Loren Voss
Loren Voss is currently a Resident Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, focusing on the law of war, domestic deployment of the military, and the rule of law. She previously served as Director for Defense Policy and Strategy at the National Security Council and as a Senior Advisor for the Department of Defense. Loren also served as an Air Force officer, with deployments to the Middle East and the Baltics. She has taught legal courses on domestic military deployment and disinformation at GW Law and developed Lawfare's domestic deployment tracker. Loren currently serves as Chair of ASIL’s Lieber Society on the Law of Armed Conflict. She has a JD from Harvard Law and an MA in Global Affairs from Yale University.
Live Stream
While this year's conference will be held as an in-person event, we will be offering
a live stream option as we welcome our expanding global audience.
In-Person Registration
Frontiers of Prevention is free to attend as an in-person event. If you will be able to attend the event in-person, please register by clicking the registration button below.
The 2026 Nadia Rubaii Memorial Award
Every April in conjunction with Frontiers of Prevention, I-GMAP holds the annual Nadia Rubaii Memorial Award and Lecture, in memory of our late founding director. We bring in an internationally visible figure in the global struggle for rights, dignity and justice, whose courage and compassion exemplify Nadia's work and character.
This year, the award will be awarded to M. Gessen.
M. Gessen is an opinion columnist for The New York Times and author of eleven books, including the National Book Award-winning The Future is History: how Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia and The New York Times bestselling The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. Their 2020 book, Surviving Autocracy, expands on their essay “Autocracy: Rules for Survival,” which went viral after Donald Trump’s first presidential victory.
Gessen was born in Moscow, immigrated to the United States at 14, and returned to Moscow as a journalist 10 years later. They were famously dismissed as editor of the popular science magazine Vokrug sveta after refusing to send a reporter to cover Putin hang-gliding with endangered Siberian cranes. Gessen founded Russian Independent Media Archive (now Kronika) to digitally preserve independent Russian journalism produced over the last twenty years.
In 2013, Gessen moved to New York because their family was targeted by Putin's anti-LGBT campaign. Gessen spent seven years as a staff writer for The New Yorker and has contributed to The New York Review of Books, The Washington Post, Harper’s, and Vanity Fair. They were recognized with the George Polk Award for opinion writing in 2024. They are a distinguished professor at Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY and a distinguished visiting writer at Bard College.