María Juliana Angarita Bohórquez

Born in the Andes mountains of Colombia, María Juliana is an internationalist and museologist, currently a PhD candidate in museology, mediation, and heritage at the Université du Québec à Montréal. As a Canadian and a Trudeau Scholar alumna, she is committed to applying her academic expertise to address some of Canada’s most pressing issues, including promoting critical citizenship, fostering intercultural coexistence, and advancing truth and reconciliation efforts.

María Juliana has contributed to research and exhibition projects at Concordia University’s Curating and Public Scholarship Lab and has worked on the project “Localities of Resistance, Communities of Care” in collaboration with the Museo de Bogotá and the Museo de la Ciudad Autoconstruida. She has also served as a consultant for the Montreal Holocaust Museum. In 2019, she was awarded the Roland-Arpin Prize for her master’s thesis on the Museum of Memory of Colombia.

Her doctoral research delves into how grassroots memorialization initiatives—such as commemorations, performances, and community museums—contribute to the heritagization process. It examines how the memory practices of historically marginalized victims foster innovative approaches to heritage-building "from below" in peacebuilding contexts. As a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation (PETF) scholar, she has conducted extensive data gathering, built crucial trust relationships with research participants, and established global connections with experts across both the private and public sectors, all of which are vital to the depth and breadth of her doctoral project.