Judy Barsalou

Judy Barsalou is President of the El-Hibri Foundation. Prior to joining EHF in 2013, Dr. Barsalou was a visiting scholar at the American University in Cairo, where she conducted research about Egyptian views about justice and accountability in post-Mubarak Egypt.  Dr. Barsalou has two stints working for the Ford Foundation. Between 1982 and 1990, she served as a program officer in the Foundation’s New York headquarters and its Middle East and North Africa office, based in Cairo. From 2008-2011 she returned to Cairo as the Ford Foundation’s Representative for MENA region, managing a grant program that awarded approximately $13 million annually in grant funding.  Judy has also served as the Vice President of the Grant and Fellowship Program at the United States Institute of Peace; Executive Director of the Middle East Research and Information Project, which publishes Middle East Report; Director of Academic Programs at the Institute of Governmental Affairs, the University of California, Davis; and Program Officer at the Jerusalem Fund’s Center for Policy Analysis on Palestine. Her research focuses on transitional justice, including the role of memorials in social reconstruction; the challenges of teaching history in societies emerging from violent conflict; and trauma and transitional justice. She holds a B.A. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.A., M. Phil and Ph.D. in comparative politics from Columbia University.