Julia Palmiano Federer (PhD) is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Ottawa (uOttawa) and the Head of Research at the Ottawa Dialogue, an organisation based at uOttawa that specializes in the resolution of armed conflicts around the world through Track Two diplomacy, a form of unofficial and informal dialogue between warring parties. She’s also currently a Senior Fellow at the Negotiation and Conflict Resolution Collaboratory at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership. She’s a Laureate of the 2022 Women, Peace, and Security Research Awards for her work on women, peace, security, and climate change.
Dr Palmiano Federer’s research interests center around normative and decolonized approaches to conflict resolution, for instance on how norms such as inclusivity and gender equality affect the outcomes of peace negotiations and the role of nongovernmental organizations producing knowledge and expertise on peacemaking. She has published in leading journals in conflict resolution and mediation. Her book manuscript, “NGOs Mediating Peace: Promoting Inclusion in Myanmar’s Ceasefire Negotiations,” is forthcoming.
She published several policy papers related to gender and peace negotiations, gender norms and mediation and women’s inclusion in the Myanmar ceasefire negotiations from 2011-2015. She’s a member of several research groups dedicated to supporting and empowering self-identifying women and women of colour researching peace and conflict.
Dr Palmiano Federer was born in Manila, Philippines, and raised on the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations (Vancouver). She currently lives in Bern, Switzerland with her husband and two daughters.