Badema Pitic oversees the Center’s operations, programming (public events, fellowship programs, and K-16 outreach) and external communications, and administers the Center’s Title VI grants (National Resource Center and Foreign Languages and Area Studies). Prior to joining the Center in 2023, Badema has worked in several academic and program management roles at the University of Southern Caliafornia, where, most notably, she spearheaded the addition of Bosnian Muslim genocide survivors’ testimonies into the USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive.
A scholar of music, memory, and violence, Badema earned her PhD in Ethnomusicology from UCLA. She has published articles and book chapters on genocide commemoration; music, religion, and genocide; transitional justice; genocide survivors' music; and Muslim traditional religious music in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Her research interests include memory, oral history, and testimony, with an emphasis on Bosnian Muslim and Bosnian Jewish history.