VESTAL, NY (WIVT/WBGH) – 2021 Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa will speak at Binghamton University on April 14th and accept the inaugural Nadia Rubaii Memorial Prize from BU’s Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity prevention (I-GMAP).

The prize honors Ressa’s work in promoting atrocity prevention through defending free media in the Philippines and around the world.

It is named in honor of I-GMAP’s co-founder and former co-director Nadia Rubaii. Before her death in 2022, Rubaii was a professor and practitioner of public administration at Binghamton.

“For decades, her work focused on helping universities and public service organizations better serve diverse publics, be interculturally effective and promote social equity,” says the school.

Ressa will deliver a keynote address for I-GMAP’s 2023 Frontiers of Prevention meeting which will begin at 5 p.m. in the Anderson Center’s Chamber Hall.

The meeting is an international gathering of atrocity prevention scholars, practitioners, and policy makers.

“I am so delighted that Maria Ressa will come to Binghamton University to receive the first Nadia Rubaii Memorial Prize,” said I-GMAP co-founder Pensky. “Maria’s courage in standing up for truth and democracy is an inspiration for people around the world. I can’t imagine a better way to honor the values and spirit that Nadia brought to our work here at I-GMAP.”

Ressa is CEO, co-founder, and president of Rappler, the Philippines’ top digital news site, and has been a journalist in Asia for over 36 years.

When Rodrigo Duterte was elected president of the Philippines in 2016, Ressa and Rappler reported consistently on his administration’s human rights abuses and extrajudicial killings. As a result, Ressa was directly targeted by Duterte and imprisoned multiple times.

Ressa continues to promote and defend independent journalism as a key pillar of democracy.

For her work, she was named TIME magazine’s Person of the Year in 2018.

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