Islam Borinca. At age 8, Islam Borinca was forced to trek for days with his mother and younger siblings from their home in Kosovo to neighboring Albania while his father and older brother were taken away and, he later learned, murdered. In the refugee camp, feeling confused, fearful, “incomplete”—while hoping his family might someday be reunited—Borinca transposed war images from his brain to paper, struggling to make sense of what had happened. Months later, after returning to ashes, the totality of loss, and guilt at surviving, he made up his mind to honor the suffering of his family by continuing his education. Driven to understand human conflict and carve pathways to reconciliation, he eventually won a scholarship from the Swiss government, earned a Ph.D. in social psychology at the University of Geneva, did postdoctoral research in Ireland, and now, at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, studies dehumanization, reconciliation, and intergroup healing. “I learned that trauma can’t be erased, but it can be transformed,” he says . “I am no longer defined by what I survived but by what I contribute. The shift from being a war-affected child to somebody helping others understand and heal the psychological wounds of conflict has been the defining transformation of my life.”