After 15 years of coaching high school speech and debate at underserved, majority black public high schools throughout South Mississippi, Laura decided to leave the world of academic research to pursue her life long dream of working in public education. Invoking the educational philosophy of Paulo Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed 1970), Laura is committed to issues of educational equity and social justice education.
She is currently enrolled in the Teach Mississippi Institute at the University of Mississippi - a two year alternative route program for teaching licensure. She will begin teaching fall of 2022 in areas of Mississippi with critical teacher shortages and majority minority student populations.
—————————————————————-
Prior, Laura received her MA from the University of Denver's Josef Korbel School of International Studies in the fields of International Relations and Comparative Politics. Originally admitted to the PhD program, she passed her comprehensive exams in IR and CP before leaving the program early to pursue a career in public education. As a PhD student, she served as a research fellow with the Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security & Diplomacy. In this capacity, Laura served as a Research Assistant to Dr. Tricia Olsen's Corporations and Human Rights Database (CHRD) Project, and a Research Assistant to Dr. Marie Berry and Dr. Milli Lake's (London School of Economics) Women's Rights After War (WRAW) Project. She additionally served as a Production Editor for the Journal of Global Security Studies (JoGSS), and taught undergraduate courses as an adjunct instructor of Introduction to International Politics, Introduction to International Political Economy, and Research Methods.
Prior to the completion of her MA, Laura worked for Legal Aid of Arkansas where she represented indigent clients in domestic violence cases. She graduated summa cum laude from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2008 with a BA in Political Science. She earned her JD from the University of Arkansas School of Law in 2013, where she served as Production Editor for the Journal of Islamic Law & Culture and Research Assistant to Professor Uche Ewelukwa, S.J.D.
Past research interests focused broadly on the rule of law under non-democracies, with particular emphasis on legal global governance and non-state actors, judicial behavior under institutional instability, and judicial and quasi judicial remedies in post-conflict environments. Geographical focus is Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa.
——————————————————————————————————————————————-
Conference Papers
“2 Legit 2 Quit? Civil Society Activism and Judicial Defection Against Autocratic Backsliding.”
Conference Paper presented at the Western Division of the International Studies Association, Annual Meeting 2017
Updated version presented at the Southern Political Science Association, Annual Meeting 2019
“Judges are Not Vulcans: Social Network Analysis and Judicial Behavior Under Non-Democracies”
Conference Paper presented at the (1) Southern Political Science Association, Annual Meeting 2019 and the (2) Western Political Science Association, Annual Meeting 2019
——————————————————————————————————————————————-
Additional Publications
Avant, Deborah, Laura Siltanen Hosman, Kara Kingma, and Jason Pielemeier. 2016. "Creative Multilateralism: Workshop Report." Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver.
Hosman, Laura Siltanen. 2008. “Mothers of Morality: An Analysis of Gender in the Rwandan Genocide of 1994.” The Honors College, University of Southern Mississippi. [Senior Thesis]
Hosman, Laura Siltanen. 2006. “Taking the South: Grassroots Organizing in Conservative Regions.” In The Student Representative Organizing Guide, 2006-2007. Edited by Campus Progress, a division of The Center for American Progress.
Laura currently lives in Hattiesburg, MS with her two rescue dogs - Catherine and Rudy. In her spare time, she enjoys running marathons and hiking, and exploring Mississippi’s state parks with her pups.