Ñusta Carranza Ko is an Associate Professor of Global Affairs and Human Security in the School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Baltimore. She is also an associate researcher for the Institute of Democracy and Human Rights (IDEHPUCP) at the Pontifical University in Lima, Peru; is a Charles E. Scheidt Faculty Fellow in Atrocity Prevention; and works as an outside consultant (ad-honorem) for the UN Special Rapporteur on DPRK Human Rights. She received her PhD in Political Science from Purdue University in 2016, M.A. in Spanish (Hispanic Studies) from Purdue University in 2013, M.A. in Politics from New York University in 2009, M.A. in International Relations from the University of Windsor in 2007, and her B.A. from McGill University in 2006. She is of Indigenous (Quechua-speaking peoples from the Northern Andes of Peru) and Korean descent.
Her research focuses on gendered dimensions of human rights and transitional justice. Carranza Ko's research expands across the regions of East Asia (South Korea) and South America (Peru and Brazil), where she has conducted fieldwork and held visiting research positions (Institute of Democracy and Human Rights-PUCP), including survey research, elite interviews, and archival research. Most recently, Carranza Ko served as the editor (and contributor) for the New Ways of Solidarity with Korean Comfort Women, published in June 2023 with Palgrave Macmillan. This edited volume derived from the workshop/conference grant Carranza Ko obtained from the Academy of Korean Studies, which led to the organization of the Virtual Conference on Comfort Women held at the University of Baltimore in May 2022.
Currently, she is working on her completing her book manuscript on the violations of Indigenous peoples' rights in Peru, examining coercive sterilizations, making space for victim-survivors' voices, and identifying various angles of analysis that involve Indigenous methodology, decolonial framing, and gender-centric visions. She also has an article specifically on reparations related to the coercive sterilization of Indigenous women in Peru forthcoming in Violence: An International Journal, and she is working with co-collaborators in examining the same case from a more health-based angle for a health journal. Additionally, she has a forthcoming encyclopedia entry on East Asian Human Rights with Oxford Research Encyclopedia.
Her previous on making the case for genocide (related to the question of Indigenous women who were coercively sterilized) has been published in Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal (2020) and the gendered and intersectional aspect of the case has been published as a chapter publication with an edited human rights book Human Rights as Battlefields: Changing Practices and Contestations (2018). Along with this work on human rights, she has published her first solo-authored book on human rights, international norms, and transitional justice Truth, Justice, and Reparations in Peru, Uruguay, and South Korea (2021; Palgrave Macmillan). Additionally, she has completed research on truth-commissions and memory building initiatives, and truth-commission and norm compliance related work on South Korea. One of these studies published in Memory Studies was selected as the winner of the 2021 Zumkehr Prize in Public Memory Scholarship.
Carranza Ko has also been involved in research that extends across disciplines. This includes the studies on Indigeneity, identity, and post-colonial dynamics of power (Indigenous Futures and Learnings Taking Place 2020; Crecimos Antinegros en America Latina y el Caribe (Editorial Abya Yala, 2022)); the impact of Asian migration on Peruvian national identity (published in the Journal of Chinese Overseas (2017)); and survey based field research exploring the impact of Korean culture in Brazil and Peru, funded by a grant of the Academy of Korean Studies and which findings were published in two interdisciplinary journals.
Along with her research, Carranza Ko enjoys teaching graduate and undergraduate courses across sub-fields of Global Affairs, International Relations, Comparative Politics, American Politics, and Latin American and Latino Studies. Most recently she received the 2022-2023 Center for Excellence in Learning, Teaching and Technology (CELTT) Excellence in Teaching Award, Horable mention for the 2023 Center for Excellence in Learning, Teaching and Technology (CELTT) Excellence in Transformative Teaching Award, and the 2022-2023 Mental Health Ally awards from the University of Baltimore. Additionally, she was selected as the recipient for the Adaljiza Sosa-Riddell Mentoring Award from the American Political Science Association Committee on the Status of Latinos y Latinas in the Profession. She was also named Eubie Mentor of the Year (2021) Award from the University of Baltimore and in the past has received, the 2018 Getty College of Arts and Sciences Professor of the Year and the 2018 and 2017 Outstanding Professor of the Year from Getty College of Arts and Sciences Student Advisor Board at Ohio Northern University. Years before in 2016, she received the K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award, a national level recognition for teaching from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). She has also received numerous departmental and university level teaching awards at Purdue University, including the associate fellow induction for the Teaching Academy, a university level recognition given to one or two graduate students per academic year.
To further advance her knowledge and improve her teaching approach, Carranza Ko is currently working on a study (in collaboration with a librarian) about the impact of incorporating open educational resources and open education pedagogical approaches (e.g., renewable assignments that serve social justice purposes) in undergraduate political science research methods courses. She has also applied and completed the Certificate in Open Educational Practices from the University of Minnesota in 2022, and has published in the Journal of Political Science Education (2018) on using simulations to encourage active student engagement in international relations. This work became the basis of the book Game of Thrones and the Theories of International Relations with Dr. Laura Young, released on December 15, 2019.
Her research focuses on gendered dimensions of human rights and transitional justice. Carranza Ko's research expands across the regions of East Asia (South Korea) and South America (Peru and Brazil), where she has conducted fieldwork and held visiting research positions (Institute of Democracy and Human Rights-PUCP), including survey research, elite interviews, and archival research. Most recently, Carranza Ko served as the editor (and contributor) for the New Ways of Solidarity with Korean Comfort Women, published in June 2023 with Palgrave Macmillan. This edited volume derived from the workshop/conference grant Carranza Ko obtained from the Academy of Korean Studies, which led to the organization of the Virtual Conference on Comfort Women held at the University of Baltimore in May 2022.
Currently, she is working on her completing her book manuscript on the violations of Indigenous peoples' rights in Peru, examining coercive sterilizations, making space for victim-survivors' voices, and identifying various angles of analysis that involve Indigenous methodology, decolonial framing, and gender-centric visions. She also has an article specifically on reparations related to the coercive sterilization of Indigenous women in Peru forthcoming in Violence: An International Journal, and she is working with co-collaborators in examining the same case from a more health-based angle for a health journal. Additionally, she has a forthcoming encyclopedia entry on East Asian Human Rights with Oxford Research Encyclopedia.
Her previous on making the case for genocide (related to the question of Indigenous women who were coercively sterilized) has been published in Genocide Studies and Prevention: An International Journal (2020) and the gendered and intersectional aspect of the case has been published as a chapter publication with an edited human rights book Human Rights as Battlefields: Changing Practices and Contestations (2018). Along with this work on human rights, she has published her first solo-authored book on human rights, international norms, and transitional justice Truth, Justice, and Reparations in Peru, Uruguay, and South Korea (2021; Palgrave Macmillan). Additionally, she has completed research on truth-commissions and memory building initiatives, and truth-commission and norm compliance related work on South Korea. One of these studies published in Memory Studies was selected as the winner of the 2021 Zumkehr Prize in Public Memory Scholarship.
Carranza Ko has also been involved in research that extends across disciplines. This includes the studies on Indigeneity, identity, and post-colonial dynamics of power (Indigenous Futures and Learnings Taking Place 2020; Crecimos Antinegros en America Latina y el Caribe (Editorial Abya Yala, 2022)); the impact of Asian migration on Peruvian national identity (published in the Journal of Chinese Overseas (2017)); and survey based field research exploring the impact of Korean culture in Brazil and Peru, funded by a grant of the Academy of Korean Studies and which findings were published in two interdisciplinary journals.
Along with her research, Carranza Ko enjoys teaching graduate and undergraduate courses across sub-fields of Global Affairs, International Relations, Comparative Politics, American Politics, and Latin American and Latino Studies. Most recently she received the 2022-2023 Center for Excellence in Learning, Teaching and Technology (CELTT) Excellence in Teaching Award, Horable mention for the 2023 Center for Excellence in Learning, Teaching and Technology (CELTT) Excellence in Transformative Teaching Award, and the 2022-2023 Mental Health Ally awards from the University of Baltimore. Additionally, she was selected as the recipient for the Adaljiza Sosa-Riddell Mentoring Award from the American Political Science Association Committee on the Status of Latinos y Latinas in the Profession. She was also named Eubie Mentor of the Year (2021) Award from the University of Baltimore and in the past has received, the 2018 Getty College of Arts and Sciences Professor of the Year and the 2018 and 2017 Outstanding Professor of the Year from Getty College of Arts and Sciences Student Advisor Board at Ohio Northern University. Years before in 2016, she received the K. Patricia Cross Future Leaders Award, a national level recognition for teaching from the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). She has also received numerous departmental and university level teaching awards at Purdue University, including the associate fellow induction for the Teaching Academy, a university level recognition given to one or two graduate students per academic year.
To further advance her knowledge and improve her teaching approach, Carranza Ko is currently working on a study (in collaboration with a librarian) about the impact of incorporating open educational resources and open education pedagogical approaches (e.g., renewable assignments that serve social justice purposes) in undergraduate political science research methods courses. She has also applied and completed the Certificate in Open Educational Practices from the University of Minnesota in 2022, and has published in the Journal of Political Science Education (2018) on using simulations to encourage active student engagement in international relations. This work became the basis of the book Game of Thrones and the Theories of International Relations with Dr. Laura Young, released on December 15, 2019.