Mershon faculty affiliate Hollie Nyseth Brehm, assistant professor of sociology, has been selected by the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) for its Emerging Scholar Prize. The prize is awarded to one early-career scholar globally each year.

The IAGS is a global, interdisciplinary, nonpartisan organization that seeks to further research and teaching about the nature, causes and consequences of genocide, and advance policy studies on prevention of genocide. Nyseth Brehm will receive her prize at the IAGS conference in July in Brisbane, Australia.

Nyseth Brehm researches mass murder. Her work focuses on the causes and processes of genocide and on how countries rebuild in the aftermath of atrocity. She has lived and worked in Rwanda and Bosnia, where she interviewed both perpetrators and victims of genocide.

In 2014-15, Nyseth Brehm received a grant from the Mershon Center for her project on "Genocide, Justice, and Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts."

“While many people believe that genocide is unpredictable, I study how it is actually patterned,” she said. “I am creating models to better understand the factors that influence why, when and how genocide occurs.”

Nyseth Brehm is a member of a government atrocity prevention task force and regularly consults with the Rwandan National Commission for the Fight Against Genocide. She also volunteers with the Center for Victims of Torture and is a core member of I-Activism, which provides humanitarian action to people affected by mass atrocity in the Darfur region of Sudan.

Nyseth Brehm holds a Ph.D. and M.A. in sociology from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and a B.S. in sociology and political science from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. She has been an assistant professor of sociology at Ohio State since 2014. In 2016, she received the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Watch her 2016 presentation at TEDxOhioStateUniversity on how “Eradicating Genocide is Our Responsibility.”