RACHEL SCHMIDT
About Me
I am currently a SSHRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. I am working on a book based on my PhD dissertation, which focuses on the impact of highly gendered framing contests between the government and insurgents in Colombia. I am a Senior Editor at OpenGlobalRights, I teach human rights and development at Carleton University (Ottawa), and I am also serving on a PhD dissertation committee at the University of Ottawa.
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My research interests include political violence and civil war, DDR, rebel group cohesion, human rights, gender, peacebuilding, framing theory, fieldwork ethics, and Latin America.
I have published articles in International Studies Quarterly, Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, International Journal (forthcoming 2020) and Terrorism & Political Violence (forthcoming 2021). I have also written book chapters for edited volumes, and my work has won several awards, including a Senate Medal nomination for my PhD dissertation.
The path to getting my doctorate was not straightforward. My life completely blew up in 2012 when I was halfway through my PhD. I had a toddler and a 9-month-old infant, and a husband away overseas, when I was suddenly diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. There was no history of cancer in my family. I exercised, I never smoked, I drank tons of water—I was doing everything right. Except for stress. My life was one big sleep-deprived, caffeine-fuelled, type-A, overachiever stress-fest.
I had weeks to live without treatment, the doctors said.
But I wasn't done with life—or life wasn't done with me. I survived due to an extraordinary medical team at the Ottawa General Hospital and the generosity of a bone marrow donor that I have never met. I reinvented myself, I learned to slow down and breathe (sort of), I returned to the writing I love, and in 2017 I completed my first Ironman. That same year, five years post-transplant, I returned to academia to finish my PhD and finally went back to Colombia—a country that has held my heart since I did my MA fieldwork there in 2006. I defended my dissertation over Zoom, in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic.
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I have learned from this journey that I can't predict what is coming next. But I'm certain that I will learn some amazing things along the way.
