About Us
Karen Hamilton
Director
Prior to joining Above Ground, Karen headed the Guatemalan office of Project Accompaniment Quebec-Guatemala, a grassroots NGO that works to support at-risk human rights defenders. Karen has also worked as a researcher at the Centre d’études sur le droit international et la mondialisation and as lead coordinator of the Inter-Council Network, a Canadian coalition of provincial and regional councils for international cooperation. Karen is chair of the steering committee of the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability (CNCA) and sits on the steering committee of the Global Initiative for Corporate Accountability (GICA). She completed a master of laws degree in 2014.
Georgina Alonso
Senior research and advocacy officer
Georgina holds a PhD from the School of International Development and Global Studies at the University of Ottawa. She brings to Above Ground considerable experience researching social and environmental justice issues in the context of large-scale resource extraction. She travelled to Peru to learn from mining-affected communities for her master’s degree research on corporate social responsibility in the Canadian mining industry. For her doctoral degree she studied labour, environment and gender issues in fisheries, in part through research with fishing communities in Vietnam.
