Dr. Amy Finnegan is a sociologist whose teaching and research interests include social movements and social change, peace and conflict, global health, human rights, medical sociology, globalization and health policy, service learning, and African studies. She is also the co-director of SocMed, a non-profit organization that advocates for and implements global health education in the pursuit of justice and equity through immersion courses in northern Uganda and now, Haiti.
As a program officer, researcher, activist, and teacher, Finnegan has been involved in work related to Uganda for the past 13 years. She has previously taught at the University of Minnesota-Rochester, Tufts University, Boston College, and Gulu University in Gulu, Uganda. She completed her Ph.D. from Boston College in 2011, where her dissertation focused on insider and outsider activist efforts for peace in northern Uganda. She has an MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and a BA in Political Science and Spanish from Washington University in St. Louis.
Finnegan succeeds Dr. Gerald W. Schlabach, Professor of Theology, who became Justice and Peace Studies program director in 2007. Schlabach led a process of strategic planning and curricular revision that transformed Justice and Peace Studies into a department in 2012. He will be on sabbatical in the coming academic year, working on a book on Catholic peace theology.