WASHINGTON, August 13, 2026 – The U.S. Office of Panzi Foundation is proud to announce that Ms. Kim Thuy Seelinger has joined its Board of Directors, effective July 16, 2026. A leading expert on gender-based violence in armed conflict and forced displacement, Ms. Seelinger has spent her career strengthening the justice and support systems available to survivors of conflict-related sexual violence.
Ms. Seelinger holds faculty positions in both Public Health and Law at Washington University in St. Louis, where she joined as the inaugural director of the Center for Human Rights, Gender and Migration in 2019. She first met Dr. Denis Mukwege in 2007 and visited Panzi Hospital and Foundation in 2014 while studying responses to conflict-related sexual violence in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. In the years since, she has continued to support local justice and survivor-support efforts in the region while influencing critical global policies through applied research and technical assistance.
In 2021, Ms. Seelinger was appointed Special Adviser on Sexual Violence in Conflict to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. She later became the Office’s first Senior Coordinator on Gender-based Crimes and Crimes Against and Affecting Children, overseeing implementation across all trial teams, including the DRC situation, before returning to Washington University in August 2025. A practicing lawyer, Ms. Seelinger has also represented survivors of conflict-related sexual violence for years, is a graduate of New York University School of Law, and remains an active member of the New York State bar.
A recognized expert on gender and conflict-related sexual violence, Ms. Seelinger’s contributions include co-drafting the International Protocol on the Documentation and Prosecution of Sexual Violence in Conflict in 2014/2017, the Office of the International Criminal Court Prosecutor’s policies on gender-based crimes and on children in 2023, the UN Framework on the Prevention of Conflict-related Sexual Violence in 2022. Her writing has appeared in notable publications including the Journal of International Criminal Justice, the Lancet, and Foreign Affairs.
Before joining Washington University, Ms. Seelinger directed the award-winning Sexual Violence Program at the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, where she also taught courses on the law of armed conflict and refugee protection, and remains a Senior Research Fellow there.
“Kim has stood with Panzi for nearly two decades, long before she joined our Board,” said Panzi’s founder and 2018 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Dr. Denis Mukwege. “Few people understand as well as she does how research, policy, and international justice must connect back to survivors themselves and I have watched her bring survivors’ voices into rooms where accountability is decided. She joins us not as a newcomer, but as a longtime partner in this fight, and we are grateful to have her expertise guiding Panzi’s next chapter.”
“In nearly two decades of working alongside Dr. Mukwege and the Panzi team to strengthen survivors’ access to support and justice, I have learned so much from them about holistic care, individual and community healing, and the urgent need for global response to the ongoing crisis in eastern DRC” says Ms. Seelinger. “As I travel across conflict zones and other humanitarian crises around the world, Panzi’s holistic model of care has always been my reference point for how to approach survivor-centered care, even in the most fragile and insecure settings. I am now honored to join the Panzi board.”
“I hope to bring both my technical skills and my deep relationships to the table, to support survivors and the incredible Panzi staff, strengthen awareness and collaboration, and deepen our understanding of holistic care itself.”
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About Panzi Foundation
Panzi Hospital and Foundation provides survivors of sexual violence with access to compassionate, holistic care in the Democratic Republic of Congo. At Panzi, survivors receive comprehensive health services, psychosocial support, job-skills training and socio-economic reintegration opportunities, as well as access to legal services. Since 1999, Panzi has served over 91,000 survivors across the country, empowering them to not only survive, but to thrive as they rebuild their lives.
