Preet Nijhar joined the School in January 2003. Prior to that, she
was a Visiting Research Fellow and Associate Lecturer at the Queen’s
University of Belfast, and Associate Lecturer for the Open University
in Ireland. She has taught police, probation and prison officers, as
well as prisoners, including para-militaries in high security jails.
She has worked for NGOs in London, South Africa and in India, mainly
advising on cases involving violence, gender and ‘race’. She has also
worked on criminal justice issues in South Africa, Hong Kong, and in
India. In the late days of apartheid South Africa, she worked as a research
officer on a Guggenheim funded project, Informal Mediation and Restorative
Processes in South African townships and subsequently during the country’s
transition from apartheid to democracy, she was seconded to the UN to
work on nation building. In 2003, she was one of two UK citizens, seconded
by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to the European Union’s training
programme in Civilian Conflict Crisis Management in Transition. Since
2006, she has provided advice for NGOs in India, on the enactment of
the National Rural Economic Guarantee Act 2006.