Orcid ID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9266-049X
Elizabeth Lira is a psychologist, full professor of the Faculty of Psychology and director of the Human Rights Center of the Alberto Hurtado University (UAH). She was dean of that Faculty (2014-2022); Director of the Ethics Center (2006 - 2014).
She worked at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (1971–1977) and at the Fundación de Ayuda Social de las Iglesias Cristianas (FASIC, 1978–1987). In 1983, she received the National Prize College of Psychologists. She published Lecturas de Psicología y Política, Crisis política y daño psicológico (1982)reissued in 2017. She coedited with Eugenia Weinstein Psicoterapia y represión política (Siglo XXI, México, 1984). In 1988, she co-founded the Latin American Institute of Mental Health and Human Rights (ILAS). In 1991, she received the Sergio Yulis Prize (Chilean Society of Clinical Psychology).
In 1997, she joined Universidad Alberto Hurtado, researching political reconciliation with Brian Loveman (Center for Latin American Studies, San Diego State University), publishing several books, including Las suaves cenizas del olvido. La vía chilena de reconciliación política 1814-1932 (1999); Políticas de Reparación Chile: 1990-2004 (2005); and three volumes on the Judicial Power (2020).. Part of this research was also published in five volumes of the Serie Fuentes para la Historia de la República by DIBAM between 2001 and 2021.
She participated in Fondecyt as a member of study groups between 1997 and 2003; as a social sciences advisor to the Superior Council of Sciences (2003–2006); president of the Council (2005–2006); and as a counselor of the Superior Council of Education representing Conicyt (2006–2012). She is currently a member of the Advisory Technical Committee, Subdirectorate of Centers, ANID (2020–2026).
She participated in the proposal of the Istanbul Protocol (UN) for the accreditation of torture consequences (1999). In Chile, she was a member of the Human Rights Dialogue Table (1999–2000); a Commissioner in the National Commission on Political Prison and Torture (2003–2005); and a member of the Presidential Advisory Commission for the Qualification of the Disappeared Detainees, Political Executions, and Victims of Political Prison and Torture (2010–2011). She has received international awards: Nevitt Sanford Award (International Society of Political Psychology, 1998); Martin Diskin Memorial Lectureship Award (Latin American Studies Association, 2001); International Humanitarian Award (American Psychological Association, 2002); Eclipse Award, (Center for Torture Victims, Minnesota, 2011).
She was a member of the Superior Council of the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO, 2006–2010) and the International Academic Council of FLACSO Mexico (2011–2017). In Colombia, she was part of the International Advisory Committee of the Historical Memory Group (2009–2013); the International Advisory Committee of the Center for Historical Memory (2015–2018); and the International Committee of the Search Unit for Missing Persons (2020–2023). She received the Padre Hernán Larraín Award (Psychology- PUC, 2014); In 2017 she received the National Prize for Humanities and Social Sciences of Chile. In 2022, thea Abate Juan Ignacio Molina Distinction of Merit from the University of Talca. Her most recent book is Human Rights Violations in Latin America, Reparations and Rehabilitation (Springer, 2022), co-edited with Marcela Cornejo and Germán Morales.
She has been an associate researcher in the Human Rights Center of the Alberto Hurtado University on four projects between 2015 and 2023. She is the alternate director of the DATA JUSTA Millennium Nucleus.