Jo-Marie Burt is associate professor of political science and director of Latin American Studies at George Mason University. She is also a Senior Fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), a human rights advocacy organization. She was awarded her Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University in 1999.

Dr. Burt has published widely on political violence, human rights and transitional justice in Latin America. In recent years, her research has focused on the ways postconflict societies confront demands for justice and accountability after atrocity. She has engaged in research and advocacy in relation to several high-profile human rights trials in the region. For example, she reported on the 2009 Fujimori trial in Peru and the 2013 Ixil genocide trial in Guatemala, organized international observation missions to these trials, and advocated on behalf of the rights of victims to access justice in both instances. She directs an ongoing research project that monitors human rights trials in Peru and Guatemala, and she writes for her blog, Rights Peru, and other media outlets, on trials in Peru, and for the International Justice Monitor and other media outlets on grave crimes cases in Guatemala.

Dr. Burt was a researcher for the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission and is a member of the advisory board of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) and the Observatorio Luz Ibarburu, a nonprofit organization that monitors human rights prosecutions in Uruguay. She has served as an expert witness in human rights cases in courts in the United States, Peru, and before the Inter-American Court for Human Rights. She has been awarded grants from the Fulbright Foundation, the Open Society Foundations, the United States Institute of Peace, the Aspen Institute, and the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, among others. Dr. Burt is an avid user of Twitter (@jomaburt). Some of her recent publications can be viewed on Academia.edu.