Julia Canney

REPORTING FELLOW

Julia Canney is the policy and communications associate for Impact:Peace, and she represents the initiative in Washington, D.C., and New York City. She was one of two recipients of the 2018 "Beyond War" Reporting Fellowship from the Pulitzer Center, for which she traveled to Northern Ireland during the 20th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement to speak with women involved in peacebuilding efforts.

Canney worked previously on the Gender, Women and Democracy team at the National Democratic Institute (NDI) in Washington, D.C. While with NDI, she supported women’s political participation programming across the Central and West Africa and Eurasia regions, with a particular focus on democratic resilience and inclusive transitions, masculinities, and violence against women in politics. Canney led stakeholder training on monitoring election-related violence against women in the online and offline space in Abuja, Nigeria, and Kano, Nigeria, in partnership with election-monitoring initiatives during the 2019 Nigerian presidential and gubernatorial elections. As the gender focal point on the Peace, Security & Democratic Resilience (PSDR) Working Group for the institute, she contributed to the development of NDI’s policies in regards to gender, security, and transformative transitions. Alongside her PSDR Steering Committee members, Canney conducted PSDR needs assessments with 25 NDI country offices that led to the development of an institute-wide strategy for NDI programming in conflict-affected areas.

Canney received her master's degree in human rights with a focus on gender and security at University College Dublin, where she founded the university’s first student-run organization focused on consent education, worked extensively on the 2018 referendum on reproductive rights in Ireland, and was a researcher for the Clann Project with the Justice for Magdalenes Research group. Canney earned bachelor's degrees in both government and history from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia.

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