Holly J. Burkhalter serves as Senior Advisor for Justice System Transformation. She stewards IJM’s relationships in the policy, human rights and development communities and speaks and publishes regularly on IJM’s behalf.

Before joining IJM, Holly spent nine years serving as the U.S. Policy Director for Physicians for Human Rights and fourteen years as the Advocacy Director and Director of the Washington office for Human Rights Watch. Holly also staffed the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Human Rights and International Organizations from 1981 to 1983. From 1977 to 1981, she worked for Representative (now Senator) Tom Harkin, D-IA.

She is the author of Good God, Lousy World & Me, the Improbable Journey of a Human Rights Activist from Unbelief to Faith.

Holly graduated from Iowa State University (Phi Beta Kappa). Holly currently resides in Washington, DC, with her husband, John Fitzpatrick and their two daughters.