Dr. Peg LeVine is Associate Professor at the University of Melbourne and Monash University in Australia. She received her Ed.D. from Virginia Tech University and her Ph.D. in medical anthropology from Monash University. LeVine has conducted extensive ethnographic studies while traveling with Cambodians to sites of ritual and cultural destruction during the Khmer Rouge genocide (1975-79). Her work focuses on "Ritualcide," a concept that she introduced as the systematic erosion of access to spiritual rituals, places, objects, and physical-metaphysical arbitrators. 

During her fellowship at the USC Shoah Foundation Center for Advanced Genocide Research, LeVine searched for evidence of ritual tampering, breakdown, and targeted policies across place and time that relate to “Ritualcide.” LeVine also used her time in the United States to study the stories of the large Cambodian refugee communities in Long Beach, Calif., and Lowell, Mass. 

She has published multiple books, including Love and Dread in Cambodia: Weddings, Births, and Ritual Harm Under the Khmer Rouge (NUS Press, 2010).