Mette Brogden §
Mette Brogden, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Practice in SBS/Graduate Programs in Human Rights Practice (HRTS). She is a cultural and medical anthropologist who has overseen the resettlement of over 6,000 refugees to the U.S. while serving in leadership positions in government and NGOs. Her previous careers were in environmental and public policy conflict resolution, and as a psychotherapist in community mental health centers. She facilitated numerous multi-stakeholder policy-development processes across local, state, and national levels while managing the Environmental and Public Policy Conflict Resolution Program at UA’s Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy.
Mette's current research interests include international migration; trauma impacts and social healing from extreme violence, human rights violations and colonial legacies; environmental justice, rights of species and ecological systems, and philanthropy systems. Her research-practice interests include multi-stakeholder conflict resolution facilitation; how NGOs gain traction from start-up to scale-up; biocultural diversity conservation; and developing communities of practice that provide social capital and collegial support among people working to address complex, intractable troubles. Her current field sites are in northern Ghana, with World Institute of Africa Culture and Traditions (wiactghana.org), and in Tallin, Estonia, with Sillamäe Society for Child Welfare (SSCW.ee).
She holds a Ph.D. from The University of Arizona, an M.S.W. from Tulane University, M.A.s from The University of Iowa and The University of Arizona, and a Graduate Certificate in Refugee Trauma and Global Mental Health from Harvard Medical School. While completing her Ph.D., she directed a refugee resettlement program at a social services agency in Tucson, and later served as the organizational mentor for three refugee-led mutual assistance/community-based non-profit organizations in Tucson and Texas. She also provided national technical assistance for HIAS/U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement programs focused on refugee family strengthening. Between 2010-2016 she served as the State Refugee Coordinator for the State of Wisconsin, taking a year out in Baltimore to serve as the Director of Program Evaluation at Lutheran Immigrant and Refugee Services. She served as Deputy Director of the City of Seattle's Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs from 2016-2017 before accepting an appointment with the HRTS program in 2017. She currently teaches classes in human rights NGO management, migration, and Human Rights Crises & Trauma.