María José Guembe
President
Attorney and Master in International Human Rights Law. She is currently a member of the professional staff of the ESMA Memory Site Museum. She represents CELS in the Board of Directors of Memoria Abierta. She was the director of the Protection of Rights and Legal Affairs Section of the Public Ombudsman’s Office for Audiovisual Media Services from 2013 to 2018. She was an adjunct professor of the Masters in Human Rights and Public Policy at the National University of Lanús (UNLa). She was director of CELS’ Memory, Truth and Justice Program.
Paula Abal Medina
Vice President
Sociologist and Ph.D. is Social Science. Adjunct researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET). She specializes in the relation between capital and labor, in organizational models within the workers’ movements and young workers. She also studies the labor, territorial and union organization of the informal sector in Argentina. She teaches at the Interdisciplinary Institute of Higher Social Studies (IDAES -UNSAM) and in different courses organized by unions. She is author and compiler of books, author of chapters and magazine articles.
Damián Loreti
Secretary
Attorney with a Ph.D. in Information Science, he has taught information rights and freedom of expression since 1988 at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Full professor at the UBA. He was director of Communication Sciences at the UBA School of Social Sciences from 2002-2006 and vice dean from 2006-2010. He directs the Masters in Interdisciplinary Studies on Audiovisual Media Services (UBA). He is vice president of the World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) and secretary of CELS’ board of directors since 2012.
Gonzalo Conte
Treasurer
Architect (UBA), he coordinates the Topography program of Memoria Abierta. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Madres de Plaza de Mayo, Línea Fundadora, and also, the Board of Directors of the Provincial Commission for Memory and of the Space Group, places and territorial brands of political violence and state repression of the Memory Nucleus of the Institute of Social Studies. He has dedicated himself to documentary investigation of the repression circuits and the buildings where there were clandestine detention centers. His brother, Augusto María, was kidnapped in 1976 and is still missing.
Gustavo F. Palmieri
Member
Attorney. In 2017, he was appointed by the National Congress as a member of the National Committee for the Prevention of Torture on behalf of social organizations. Director of the Institute of Justice and Human Rights at the National University of Lanús (UNLa) and a tenured professor at the same university. He was secretary of Coordination, Planning and Training and deputy secretary of Police Personnel Management and Wellbeing for the National Ministry of Security between 2011 and 2013. He was director of the Institutional Violence and Citizen Security Program at CELS from 1999 to 2009.
Sofía Tiscornia
Member
Anthropologist with a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology, she is Consulting Associate Professor and director of the Political and Legal Anthropology Team at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA). She is a professor and a member of the Academic Commission of the Human Rights Doctoral Program at the National University of Lanús (UNLa). She also directs research programs on justice, police violence and human rights. She has served as an expert witness in anthropology before the IHR Court. She has published books and numerous scientific articles on institutional violence and human rights, both in Argentina and abroad. She directed CELS’ Research department.
Juan Gabriel Tokatlian
Member
Sociologist, specialist in international relations with a doctorate from The Johns Hopkins University of Washington (United States), he is vice-rector of the Torcuato Di Tella University. He lived eighteen years in Colombia where he was a professor and academic researcher, as well as co-founder of the Center for International Studies at the University of Los Andes. Author of numerous books, essays and publications, he works on politics, drug trafficking, terrorism and organized crime.
Verónica Torras
Member
Graduated in Philosophy (UBA), she has a specialization in Collective Memories, Human Rights and Resistance at CLACSO. She is the executive director of Memoria Abierta. She was communication secretary of the Government of the City of Buenos Aires, between 2000 and 2004, and director of the Memory in Movement Program of the Secretary of Communication of the Nation, between 2011 and 2015. She was director of the communication area of CELS.
Diana Wassner
Member
As member of Asociación Civil Memoria Activa (Active Memory Civil Association), Diana Wassner fights tirelessly for the clarification of the 1994 terrorist attack against the Jewish community center AMIA in which her husband perished. CELS has been working withMemoria Activa since 1997, litigating the case before the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights.
