Joelle Rosenberg

Joelle Rosenberg is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research examines how state organization shapes patterns of political violence under authoritarian rule. In particular, her dissertation examines both within- and across-case variation in the use of sexual violence under the Cold War dictatorships in Argentina and Chile. Using a combination of methodological tools including interviews, archival research, and the building of an original dataset, she asks how differences in the organization of repressive state agencies shaped the frequency, forms, and targeting of sexual violence during periods of repression. By identifying the organizational conditions that shape patterns of state sexual violence, her work aims to advance scholarly understandings of authoritarian repression, while contributing to efforts to better document, prevent, and respond to conflict-related sexual violence more broadly. Prior to her Ph.D., Joelle received both her BA and MA from UCLA.