Karen Naimer
Director, Program on Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones, Physicians for Human Rights

Karen Naimer
Karen Naimer directs the Sexual Violence in Conflict Zones Program at Physicians for Human Rights. She and her team train doctors, nurses, police officers, lawyers, and judges in East and Central Africa to collect, document, preserve, and analyze forensic evidence of sexual violence to support domestic and international prosecutions of these crimes.

Her work has been cited or featured in many media outlets, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, PBS NewsHour, NPR’s All Things Considered, Foreign Policy, PLOS One, the British Medical Journal, and New Scientist.

Prior to joining PHR, Naimer taught international law at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs and was the Edmond J. Safra Faculty Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for Ethics. Naimer also served as deputy counsel at the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-For-Food Programme (the Volcker Commission) and clerked at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

A Canadian lawyer, Naimer holds a BA from McGill University, an MA in international relations from the University of Toronto, a JD from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law, and an LLM in international legal studies from New York University School of Law.