Strengthening the humanity and dignity of people in crises through evidence and learning
Faculty and Researchers
Dyan MazuranaResearch Director and Professor
Research Professor, The Fletcher School at Tufts University
Research Professor, Friedman School of Nutrition
Senior Fellow, World Peace Foundation
Dyan Mazurana directs Feinstein’s Research Program on Women, Children, and Armed Conflict and co-directs the Masters of Arts in Humanitarian Assistance (MAHA) Program. She focuses on gendered dimensions of humanitarian response to conflict and crises, documenting serious crimes committed during conflict, and accountability, remedy, and reparation. She serves as an advisor to several governments, UN agencies, human rights NGOs, and child protection organizations regarding humanitarian assistance and improving efforts to assist youth and women affected by armed conflict. This work includes the protection of women and children during armed conflict, including those people associated with fighting forces, as well as remedy and reparation in the aftermath of violence.
Dyan has written and developed training materials regarding gender, human rights, armed conflict, and post-conflict periods for civilian, police, and military peacekeepers involved in UN and NATO operations. In conjunction with international human rights groups, she contributed to materials now widely used to assist in documenting serious violations and abuses against women and girls during conflict and post-conflict reconstruction periods. She has worked in Afghanistan, Southeastern Europe, Nepal, and southern, west and east Africa.
She has published more than 100 scholarly and policy books, articles, and international reports and her work has been translated into more than 30 languages.
Mazurana has a Ph.D. and an M.A. in women’s studies from Clark University, where she studied International Relations and Comparative Politics; International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law during armed conflict, with an emphasis on women’s rights; Critical Social Theory, English and Comparative Languages. She also holds an M.A. and B.F.A. from the University of Wyoming, where she studied painting, art history, and feminist theory.
Dyan has practiced in the Zen Buddhist tradition of the Order of Interbeing under Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh for more than 20 years. She lives with her two children and their dog in a home with ever expanding gardens.
- The ways in which war-affected populations, particularly victims of war crimes and crimes against humanity, recover—or not—from conflict, and the remedy and reparation for survivors that support recovery
- Gender and humanitarian response
- Gender dimensions of non-state armed groups
- East Africa
- South Asia
- Mexico
- Central America
- Gender and Human Security in Transitional States and Societies (DHP D231), Spring Term
- Gender, Culture, and Conflict in Complex Humanitarian Emergencies (NUTR 222/DHP D232), Fall Term
- Children, Violence, Protection, and Resilience (DHP D240), Spring Term
- Benelli, Prisca, Dyan Mazurana, and Peter Walker. “Using Sex and Age Disaggregated Data to Improve Humanitarian Response in Emergencies.” Gender & Development 20, no. 2 (2012): 219–32. https://doi.org/10.1080/13552074.2012.687219.
- Annan, Jeannie, Christopher Blattman, Dyan Mazurana, and Khristopher Carlson. “Civil War, Reintegration, and Gender in Northern Uganda.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 55, no. 6 (2011): 877–908. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002711408013.
- Mazurana, Dyan, Angela Raven-Roberts and Jane Parpart. Gender, Conflict, and Peacekeeping. Rowman and Littlefield: Oxford and Boulder (2005).
- McKay , Susan, and Dyan Mazurana . “Where Are the Girls? Girls in Fighting Forces in Northern Uganda, Sierra Leone, and Mozambique: Their Lives During and After War.” International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1163/2210-7975_hrd-4208-0155.
- United Nations. Women, Peace and Security: Study of the United Nations Secretary-General as Pursuant Security Council Resolution 1325. New York: United Nations, 2002. (Published in Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish). Mazurana served as a lead author.
- Mazurana, Dyan, Bridget Conley and Kinsey Spears. “Sex, Gender, Age, and Mass Starvation” in Accountability for Mass Starvation, eds. Bridget Conley, Alex de Waal, Catriona Murdoch, and Wayne Jordash QC (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022).
- Challenging Conceptions: Children Born of Wartime Rape and Sexual Exploitation, ed. Kimberly Theidon and Dyan Mazurana (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022).
- Atim, Teddy, Dyan Mazurana, and Anastasia Marshak. “Women Survivors and Their Children Born of Wartime Sexual Violence in Northern Uganda.” Disasters 42 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1111/disa.12275.
- Proctor, Keith, and Dyan Mazurana. “The Role of Gender in Mobilizing and Countering Fundamentalist Violent Extremist Organizations.” The Routledge Handbook of Gender and Security, 2018, 227–38. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315525099-20.
- Mazurana, Dyan, Roxanne Krystalli, and Anton Baaré. “Gender and Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration.” Oxford Handbooks Online, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199300983.013.35.
- Mazurana , Dyan, and Bretton McEvoy . “Enhancing Women’s Access to Justice in the Transitional Phase.” Practitioner’s Manual on Women’s Access to Justice, 2017.
News Items
Dyan Mazurana quoted in Boston Globe editorial on Afghanistan
On April 18, 2022, the Boston Globe editorial “The world must help the girls of Afghanistan” described how the Taliban is restricting education for girls and women and looked at…
Read MoreKinsey Spears et al. publish an occasional paper on gender, famine, and mortality
Kinsey Spears, Bridget Conley, and Dyan Mazurana published an Occasional Paper on gender, famine, and mortality with the World Peace Foundation in December 2021. During times of famine, sex, gender,…
Read MoreFeinstein Research Projects
Early Marriage in Conflict and Displacement
Our latest research shows that we do not know enough about early marriage to design programs and policies that effectively support female youth in the ways that they need. This study is generating the evidence humanitarians need.
Read MoreJustice and Accountability in Northern Uganda
This project seeks to provide timely, precise, and insightful documentary evidence and analysis, drawing on our investigation into how victims and survivors view and experience these justice mechanisms. We aim to inform the processes as well as policies and responses that emerge as the processes unfold.
Read MoreFeinstein Publications
Blue on Blue: Investigating Sexual Abuse of Peacekeepers
This report reveals that sexual abuse is a major threat to uniformed peacekeepers, especially women. The UN and troop- and police-contributing countries have not adequately responded to the issue.
Read MoreAddressing Data Gaps on Child, Early, and Forced Marriage in Humanitarian Settings
This report is a comprehensive and user-friendly concept note for a database on child marriage in humanitarian settings, a first step in eradicating the problem.
Read More