Peggy O’Donnell

Peggy O’Donnell’s work revolves around a seemingly simple question: why do people care (or not care) about the lives, deaths, and sufferings of others? The history of human rights, as she sees it, is a history of a global public learning to care about others, both down the street and halfway around the world. So, what makes them care?

A historian by training, Peggy has attempted to answer these questions by considering the actors who have transmitted information of the lives, deaths, and sufferings of others to a global public. In her doctoral work, Peggy looked at the forensic scientists who exhumed and investigated mass graves created by conflict and atrocity.

In her current work, she is considering the contributions of women war correspondents to a growing global awareness of the concept and importance of human rights. Peggy earned her PhD in History at the University of California, Berkeley and previously served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Read her full bio.