Juan Carlos Garzón Vergara

Juan Carlos Garzón is a consultant for the Open Society Foundation’s Drug Program and a senior researcher at the Igarapé Institute and Insight Crime. He is a political scientist from the Universidad Javeriana (Colombia) and a Theory and Armed Conflict Resolution specialist at the University of Los Andes (Colombia). He received his master’s degree in Latin American Studies at Georgetown University (USA).

He served four years as the Conflict Dynamics and Peace Negotiations Area Director at Fundación Ideas para la Paz. He has also worked as a policy advisor on innovation in security, drugs, and violence reduction for the Colombian government and international organizations such as the Inter-American Development Bank, the Organization of American States, and the United Nations Development Program. His primary research lines and expertise focus on organized crime, illegal economies, and violence in various Latin American countries.