Marisa O. Ensor is an Adjunct Professor at the Justice and Peace Studies Program of Georgetown University and a former senior fellow at ISIM. She is an applied and socio-legal anthropologist with broad interests in forced migration, political conflict, human rights, international development and humanitarianism, and a focus on childhood/youth and gender.

Dr. Ensor earned her MA and PhD in Anthropology from the University of Florida (Forced Migration and International Development Programs). She also holds a Masters of Law (LLM) in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex, UK, and a certificate in Refugee Studies from the University of Oxford, UK.

Prior to joining Georgetown University, she held academic positions at various other institutions including the University of Tennessee (Center for the Study of Youth and Political Conflict, and Program on Disasters, Displacement and Human Rights), and the American University in Cairo (Center for Migration and Refugee Studies).

Dr. Ensor has conducted extensive field research, policy analysis and advocacy on issues relating to forced displacement in conflict-affected, transitional and fragile societies in 16 Sub-Saharan African and Latin American countries, as well as among refugee/migrant communities in several European countries and the United States.

Her recent publications include Children and Forced Migration: Durable Solutions in Transient Years (2016) with Elżbieta M. Goździak; African Childhoods: Education, Development, Peacebuilding and the Youngest Continent (2012); Children and Migration: At the Crossroads of Resiliency and Vulnerability (2010) with Elżbieta M. Goździak; and The Legacy of Hurricane Mitch: Lessons from Post-Disaster Reconstruction in Honduras (2009), as well as 19 book chapters and 14 journal articles. She is also the author of a number of technical field reports for UNICEF, IOM, and UNHCHR.