Rate My Professor Jeremy Simons

Dr. Jeremy Simons serves as Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Preventive and Social Medicine at the University of Otago. He earned his PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Otago in 2021, with a thesis titled 'Lumad Husay (indigenous conciliation): Decolonizing justice & re-storying culture in Mindanao, Philippines.' Prior degrees include an MA in Conflict Transformation from the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University in 2002 and a BA in International Affairs from Gordon College, USA, in 1997. His research specializations encompass conflict transformation, restorative justice, appreciative inquiry, indigenous justice systems, peace processes, transitional justice, restorative leadership in Asian contexts, online harm, and polarization. Simons is an alumnus and research affiliate of the National Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Otago.

Born and raised in the Philippines, Simons has built a career as a trainer, consultant, and researcher. From 2008 to 2017, he worked in Mindanao, co-developing the Community-Based Restorative Justice Course at the Mindanao Peacebuilding Institute, supporting asset-based community development among Lumad and Moro communities, and teaching as adjunct faculty in conflict transformation at Asian Theological Seminary from 2014 to 2016. He contributed to editing 'Moving Beyond: Towards Transitional Justice in the Bangsamoro' and has published in media such as mindanews.com. Earlier, between 2002 and 2008 in Denver, USA, he coordinated restorative justice as a community organizer, partnering with Denver Public Schools, the Victim-Offender Reconciliation Program, and Padres Unidos to implement the first large-scale urban public school district restorative justice program. Key publications include the co-authored journal article 'COVID-19 stigma in New Zealand: Are we really a 'team' of five million?' (2021), 'Restorative Justice, Social Cohesion, and Preventing and Countering Violent Extremism' (2023) in the National Security Journal, and 'Restorative Justice as Restoration of Relationships' (2021). He has presented at conferences in Japan (2014), Bangladesh (2015), and Otago (2017), and received a Health Sciences Accelerator Grant for responsive research and advocacy through community engagement.