Professor Brandon Hamber is John Hume & Thomas P. O'Neill Chair in Peace based at the International Conflict Research Institute (INCORE) at Ulster University. He is also a member of the Transitional Justice Institute at Ulster University.
He was born in South Africa and currently lives in Belfast. In South Africa he trained as a Clinical Psychologist at the University of the Witwatersrand and holds a PhD from the Ulster University. Prior to moving to Northern Ireland, he coordinated the Transition and Reconciliation Unit at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation in Johannesburg. He coordinated the Centre's work focusing on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He was given the Paul Harris medal for contributions to peace by Rotary (2013), and was listed as one of the Top 100: The most influential people in armed violence reduction by the Action on Armed Violence Network (2013/2014).
He has written extensively on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, the psychological implications of political violence, and the process of transition and reconciliation in South Africa, Northern Ireland and abroad. He was a regular columnist for Polity and Engineering News writing the column Look South, many of the articles featured on Medium.
He has published some 30 book chapters and 40 scientific journal articles, and 5 books.
His book Transforming Societies after Political Violence: Truth, Reconciliation, and Mental Health was published by Springer in 2009, and published in 2011 in Spanish by Ediciones Bellaterra and entitled Transformar las sociedades después de la violencia política. Verdad, reconciliación y salud mental. In 2015, he published Psychosocial Perspectives on Peacebuilding (Editors: Hamber, Brandon, Gallagher, Elizabeth) and Healing and Change in the City of Gold: Case Studies of Coping and Support in Johannesburg (Editors: Ingrid Palmary, Brandon Hamber, Lorena Núñez). Both published by Springer.
He also enjoys writing poetry and short stories. His creative work has been published in New Contrast, Context and Botsotso and one of his short stories was selected for the WriteAgain online workshop sponsored by Penguin Books.
Qualifications: BA (Hons) MA (Clin. Psych) Ph.D.
