Joana Amaral


Biography

Dr. Joana Amaral holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Kent, UK. The author of "Making Peace with Referendums: Cyprus and Northern Ireland" (Syracuse University Press: New York, 2019), her publications focus on various topics related to peace negotiations and mediation, such as public communication, peace referendums, armed groups, the inclusion of opposition movements and civil society, and the use of sanctions in peacemaking. Her most recent positions were as Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Marburg and Researcher and Project Manager at the Berghof Foundation in Berlin, both in Germany. Her work on peace processes has particularly focused on Colombia, Northern Ireland and Cyprus. Throughout her research and practitioner work she has engaged with numerous negotiators, stakeholders and civil society activists in various peace processes and has worked and collaborated with different peace institutions and NGOs around the world, such as the United Nations, the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) in Cyprus, the German-Colombian Peace Institute CAPAZ in Bogota and the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace Security and Justice at Queen's University Belfast in Northern Ireland.