Brenna Powell

Brenna Marea Powell received her PhD in Government and Social Policy from Harvard in 2011. She is interested in comparative racial and ethnic politics, conflict and inequality. Her research includes security and policing in divided societies, as well as racial politics in Brazil and the United States. She has been a graduate fellow at Harvard's Wiener Center for Inequality and Social Policy, and Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. Prior to her graduate study, she spent five years working with the Stanford
Center on International Conflict and Negotiation on grassroots dialogue and community-based mediation programs in Northern Ireland. Brenna speaks Portuguese and received her BA from Stanford in Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity.

At CDDRL, Brenna is working with the Global Commission on Elections, Democracy and Security supported by the Kofi Annan Foundation and International IDEA. She is also working on a book project about post-conflict policing in Northern Ireland.