Dr. Jared O. Bell is a post-conflict development expert with extensive experience in designing and managing international human rights, democratization, and rule of law and justice sector programs. He's a USAID Foreign Service Officer. Prior to joining the Foreign Service, he managed ABA ROLI's Central Asia Portfolio, implementing USG funded programs across four countries. Before that, Jared worked in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina in USAID's Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Program and Democracy Offices. He has also worked on various human rights, peacebuilding, and development projects with a variety of organizations such as Peace Direct,the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Human Rights Council, the American Red Cross, and the Maryland Office of Refugees and Asylees. Jared has also taught, presented, and lectured across the globe in such places as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Latvia, Poland, The Gambia, and the United States. A prolific writer, Jared has published numerous articles on human rights, transitional justice, reconciliation and peace building, and is the author of the book “Frozen Justice: Lessons from Bosnia Herzegovina's Failed Transitional Justice Strategy” published with Vernon Press in 2018.

He holds a bachelor’s degree from Duquesne University in International Relations, a Master of Science Degree from the University of Baltimore in Negotiation and Conflict Management, and a PhD from Nova Southeastern University in Conflict Analysis and Resolution with a focus in International Peace and Conflict. In addition to his formal education, Jared has also studied and received professional training at the University of Leiden’s Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies’ Summer School for Human Rights and Transitional Justice,the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights studies, the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratization’s Venice Academy of Human Rights, the Universities of Groningen and Rijeka’s Cres Summer on “Transitional Justice and the Politics of Memory”, and Al Akhawayn University in Ifrane, Morocco. He is a recognized UNESCO Policy Lab Expert and has served as a Visiting Non-Resident Fellow at Western University's Center for Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction.