Michelle E. Anderson leads the Future of Peace program at WPF. Broadly, her work examines how societies interpret, document, and respond to injustice, conflict, or violence, and how these processes shape the possibilities for sustainable peace. Her current research interests include how concepts of accountability and responsibility are constructed across social and political life, including the ways institutions and individuals are brought into or positioned within efforts to address harm.
She brings interdisciplinary experience spanning peace and conflict studies, human rights, media and archival research, public policy, and global health, and has lived and worked in several regions, including extensive experience across Africa. Throughout this work, she has focused on questions of governance, inequality, and institutional accountability, with an emphasis on how research informs policy and practice. Her publications on transitional justice and health governance appear in journals including the International Journal of Transitional Justice, the Journal of Perpetrator Research, and BMJ Global Health. She is also committed to communicating research beyond academic audiences and previously worked as a radio correspondent with the BBC in South Africa.
Prior to joining the World Peace Foundation, she served as a Research Specialist at the USC Institute on Inequalities in Global Health at the University of Southern California, where her research focused on the social and structural determinants of health and opportunities for institutional reform. Earlier in her career, she held roles analyzing political disorder, election-related violence, and governance dynamics, producing analyses used by policymakers, civil society actors, and human rights organizations working in complex political environments. She is passionate about research as a tool for evidence-based changemaking in support of more just and peaceful societies.
She received her PhD from the University of Cape Town in Media Studies in 2020. She also holds an M.Phil in Conflict Resolution and Reconciliation from Trinity College Dublin and BAs in Human Rights and Anthropology from Southern Methodist University.
