Gwendolyn Whidden

Gwendolyn is an MPhil International Relations candidate at Balliol College, University of Oxford. Her research examines patterns of UN Security Council intervention in mass atrocity crimes, using Libya, Syria, and Iraq as case studies. She is currently a research assistant at the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (ELAC) and a Political Affairs Intern at the United Nations Office of the Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide (OSAPG), where she supports work on preventing mass atrocities. 

Prior to coming to Oxford, Gwendolyn was a Fulbright Scholar in Morocco, where she served as a university English instructor at L’École Nationale de Commerce et de Gestion in Agadir. She was also a Davis Projects for Peace Fellow in Rwanda, where she implemented an education-based peacebuilding project at a youth village in Rwamagana. She has studied and worked in Rwanda over the course of three summers since 2015 with various nongovernmental and education organisations, and spent her junior year abroad studying Arabic in Rabat, Morocco and as a visiting student in PPE at Oxford. 

Gwendolyn received her BA in Politics summa cum laude and with departmental honours from Bates College, where she was a Charles A Dana Scholar and a Phi Beta Kappa inductee. She speaks fluent French and intermediate Arabic.