Rate My Professor Jo-Marie Burt

Jo-Marie Burt is an associate professor of Political Science in the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University (1999), an M.A. from the same institution (1991), and a B.A. in Political Science, magna cum laude, from the College of the Holy Cross (1986). Her research focuses on comparative politics, conflict studies, political violence, human rights, state-society relations, and transitional justice in Latin America, particularly Peru and Guatemala. Burt has authored several key books, including Silencing Civil Society: Political Violence and the Authoritarian State in Peru (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), which received an honorable mention for the WOLA-Duke University Human Rights Book Award and has Spanish editions published in 2009, 2011, and 2022 by Instituto de Estudios Peruanos and Editorial Planeta. She co-edited Politics in the Andes: Identity, Conflict, Reform (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004) and authored Transitional Justice in the Aftermath of Civil Conflict: Lessons from Peru, Guatemala and El Salvador (Due Process of Law Foundation, 2018). As a 2024-25 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow, she is completing a book manuscript entitled In Pursuit of Justice in Post-Genocide Guatemala.

At George Mason University, Burt has held positions as Director of the Latin American Studies Program (2011-2016), Co-Director of the Center for Global Studies (2011-2014), and Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies in Public and International Affairs (2007-2009). She serves as a Senior Fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America and was President of the Latin American Studies Association (2023-2024). Burt contributed to the Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission as a regional studies researcher (2002-2003), edited NACLA Report on the Americas (1995-2000), and has served as an expert witness in human rights cases before Peruvian national courts, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and U.S. immigration courts. She has organized international observation missions for trials including those of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori (2009) and Guatemalan General Efraín Ríos Montt (2013). Her honors include the Peruvian government's Merit Award for Distinguished Service in Defense of Democracy, Rule of Law, and Human Rights (2011, Grand Official rank), Fulbright Scholar to Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (2006), Alberto Flores Galindo Visiting Professorship (2010), and LASA Best Academic Article prize (2017). Burt's work has been funded by the Fulbright Foundation, Open Society Foundations, United States Institute of Peace, MacArthur Foundation, and others. She has provided commentary for The New York Times, Washington Post, NPR, BBC, and other outlets.