Colleen Ryan (MHR ‘21) is a Master of Human Rights alumna with nearly a decade of academic and professional experience in security sector reform. From 2015 to 2021, she worked as a police officer for the Minneapolis Police Department, where she responded to mental health calls alongside clinicians as part of the innovative Co-Responder Pilot Program. During the June 2020 Black Lives Matter demonstrations in Minneapolis, Ryan contacted GQ Magazine to blow the whistle on MPD’s “toxic culture,” for which she was disciplined by then-MPD Chief Medaria Arradondo. Since leaving her position in October 2021 due to MPD’s hostile work environment, Ryan has served as a Monitoring Officer for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe’s (OSCE) Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine.
"As a female police officer in Minneapolis, I saw firsthand the challenges women face in security sector organizations," Ryan says. "Now, in my role as a Monitoring Officer and as a deputy Patrol Group Leader, I am able to utilize my past professional experiences and academic training to ensure gender balance in my patrol planning and engage with civilians on the gendered impacts of the conflict in eastern Ukraine."
