Lindsay Branham

Biography

Lindsay Branham is the Founder of Novo, an incubator for art that inspirits human connection in imaginative ways. She is an Emmy-nominated filmmaker and social scientist, leveraging media and technology to end violence and human rights abuses. The interventions she has designed have targeted peacefully dismantling the Lord's Resistance Army from within, facilitating reintegration of former child soldiers, preventing recruitment into violent extremist groups, reducing psychological distress and challenging the root causes of bonded labour. Her partners in these media-based interventions include Search for Common Ground, The Freedom Fund and Google. Her current focus is exploring the efficacy of Virtual Reality to reduce prejudice in Central African Republic. Her VR film Even in the Rain premiered at Venice Biennale and her VR film The Hidden premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. Her documentary, Behind The Fence, was nominated for an Emmy and won the Grand Jury Award for best 360 film at SXSW. She has been published by CNN, BBC and The New York Times. She is a Kathryn Davis Fellow for Peace and was named the inaugural Envision social good fellow by the Independent Film Project and the United Nations. Her research investigating the link between media and behavior change has been published by Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and in academic journals. Lindsay studied trauma and mental health at Harvard Medical School and journalism at the University of Southern California. She holds an MPhil in Social Psychology from the University of Cambridge and is currently a PhD candidate in Psychology at the University of Cambridge.