Executive Director of the Institute for the Study of Genocide (New York). Associate of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (Cambridge, MA). Founder and first President of the International Association of Genocide Scholars (1995–1997). Honored for her work by the War and Social Conflict Section of the ASA (American Sociological Association) and by the IAGS.

Publications include: numerous books and monographs on genocide, human rights, collective violence, collective altruism, and anti-Semitism; Accounting for Genocide: National Responses and Jewish Victimization during the Holocaust (recipient of the Sorokin Award of the American Sociological Association, 1979), Genocide: A Sociological Perspective (winner of the PIOOM Award, Center for the Study of Social Conflict, Leiden University, 1991). Currently working on a new book, Wresting Human Rights/Arresting Human Wrongs.