Paula Cuellar is a doctoral candidate in history and human rights at the University of Minnesota and a policy practitioner affiliated with the Kellogg Institute's Notre Dame Violence and Transitional Justice Lab (V-TJLab).
Her dissertation is on violence against women and girls during the armed conflict in El Salvador. In addition, she holds a law degree from the Universidad Centroamericana “José Simeón Cañas,” an LLM in International Human Rights from the University of Notre Dame, an MsC in human rights and peace studies from the University of El Salvador, and a postgraduate diploma in Human Rights and Democratization Processes from the University of Chile. Currently, she is the Director of Consular Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Relations in El Salvador. Previously, she worked in Mexico and in El Salvador holding positions as a researcher and as a judicial clerk, and dealing with the topics of transitional justice, disappearances, violence against women and journalists at risk.