About WGBiH

Bekir Hodžić is a current Thomas J. Watson Fellow researching how post-genocide societies reckon with their violent pasts within six countries. He holds a B.A. in History and Political Science, with Honors, from Vassar College. Bekir is the son of Bosniak genocide survivors from Podrinje, and that background motivates his human rights advocacy, including work with organizations like the Rutgers Center for the Study of Genocide and Human Rights, the Post-Conflict Research Center, and World Without Genocide, raising awareness around the Bosnian genocide—and other atrocities—through educational, political, and legal means. He also drafted and steered the first state legislative bill to recognize a Bosnian Genocide Remembrance Day to unanimous passage in the Connecticut General Assembly, and now aids the University of Connecticut in collecting local Bosniak oral histories for an archival repository.

Bekir looks forward to drawing from these experiences to aid the WGBiH as it strives to build a pluralistic, stable, and democratic Bosnia & Herzegovina, particularly by challenging ongoing genocide denial, erasure of atrocity sites, and ethnic polarization.

Suad Mahmuljin is a Bosniak genocide survivor from Kozarac, Bosnia and Herzegovina. After the
destruction of his hometown, Suad and his family emigrated to the United States in 1995.
Suad resides in Phoenix, Arizona and is a licensed architect working for the City of Phoenix.
Suad studied architecture and urban planning at Arizona State University earning a bachelor’s
degree in Urban Planning in 2005.
Suad has shared his passion for architecture and urban design by actively participating in local
professional organizations such as the American Institute of Architects, becoming the AIA
Arizona Associate Director and Board Member in 2010. Suad has advocated for adaptive re-use
and preservation of culturally significant historic buildings in the Phoenix region. These efforts
culminated in the publication of a book on the history of Downtown Phoenix in 2012, in which
Suad was a co-author.
Suad’s professional and personal dedication to architecture and urban design extends past the
built environment. Suad believes that our environments are an expression of who we are and
are a part of our identity. Witnessing genocide and destruction in his formative years, Suad has
developed a perspective on what it means to protect and rebuild that is uniquely his own. Suad
is eager to contribute to WGBiH as it seeks to rebuild an inclusive, democratic and sovereign
Bosnia and Herzegovina for all.

Patrick McCarthy is the founding coordinator of the Working Group for Bosnia and Herzegovina (WGBiH). Patrick has worked with the Bosnian community since 1993 and traveled to wartime Sarajevo in 1994 to provide humanitarian assistance. The same year, McCarthy founded the St. Louis Bosnian Student Project, which located scholarships for Bosnian student refugees.

Patrick is the author of After the Fall: Srebrenica Survivors in St. Louis, a companion volume to an exhibit at the Missouri Historical Society in 2000. With fellow board member Akif Cogo, Patrick co-authored Bosnian St. Louis: Between Two Worlds (2022). An honorary member of the Bosnian Herzegovinian American Academy of Arts and Sciences, McCarthy served as an adviser to the traveling exhibit, “Prijedor: Lives from the Bosnian Genocide.”