LORD JOHN ALDERDICE

Senior Research Fellow at Harris Manchester College, Oxford, Research Associate, School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, Centre for International Studies, University of Oxford. In the last thirty years, John Alderdice has been involved in almost every aspect of the Irish Peace Process. As Leader of the Alliance Party of Northern Ireland from October 1987, he played a significant role in all the talks between the political parties and the British and Irish Governments on the resolution of the historic conflict in Ireland through to the negotiation of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. He then retired as Alliance Leader and became the first Speaker of the new Northern Ireland Assembly, leading the establishment of the new legislature. He retired as Speaker in 2004 on his appointment to the Independent Monitoring Commission, tasked by the British and Irish Governments with closing down terrorist operations and overseeing normalization of security activity in Northern Ireland. More recently the First, Deputy First and Justice Ministers of Northern Ireland invited him to work with two colleagues to develop a new strategy to bring an end to the remaining paramilitary organizations in Northern Ireland. He also established the Centre for Democracy and Peace Building in Belfast to work on the cultural and attitudinal changes that will complete the Irish Peace Process.

DR. LYN BOYD-JUDSON

Founder and Executive Director of the Global Women's Narratives Project, Co-director, Oxford Initiative for Global Ethics, Former UNESCO Chair in Global Humanities and Ethics 2016-2019. Boyd-Judson's current research in international human rights law for Oxford focuses on the right to mental health for women survivors of violence. From 2015 – 2018, she was executive director and co-chair of the board of the Oxford Consortium for Human Rights. She earlier served as the executive director of the Institute for Humanities and Ethics at the University of Southern California for eleven years where she taught in the Honors Program, the School of Religion, the School of International Relations, and the School of Journalism. She is a member of the Presidential Task Force of the Pacific Council on International Policy, serving as an observer of pre-trial hearings at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Previous and linked affiliations include RAND, the Carter Presidential Center, the Hong Kong Legislative Council, the United States Embassy Berlin-Third Reich Document Center, the USC Center for International Studies, the Walt Disney Company Asia-Pacific, and Dow Jones News Service. She is the author of Strategic Moral Diplomacy: Understanding the Enemy’s Moral Universe and co-editor (with Patrick James) of Women’s Global Health: State Policies and International Norms. Boyd-Judson is currently writing a dissertation for the International Human Rights Law Program at the University of Oxford.

PROF. SIMUKAI CHIGUDU

Associate Professor of African Politics at the Oxford Department of International Development and Fellow of St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford.  Chigudu is principally interested in the social politics of inequality in Africa, which he examines using disease, public health, violence, and social suffering as organising frameworks for both historical and contemporary case studies. His forthcoming book entitled 'The Political Life of an Epidemic: Cholera, Crisis and Citizenship in Zimbabwe' (under contract with Cambridge University Press), which is a study of the social and political causes and consequences of Zimbabwe’s catastrophic cholera outbreak in 2008/09, the worst in African history. He has published articles in a number of peer-reviewed scholarly journals including African Affairs, Global Health Governance, Health Economics, Policy and Law, the International Feminist Journal of Politics, Health Policy and Planning, Seizure: The European Journal of Epilepsy, Feminist Africa, and The Lancet. His academic background is eclectic having received training in Medicine at Newcastle University, Public Health at Imperial College London, and African Studies at the University of Oxford before completing his DPhil at ODID. He has previously worked and conducted research in Zimbabwe, Uganda, The Gambia, Tanzania and South Africa. Prior to academia, he was a medical doctor in the UK’s National Health Service where he worked for three years.

PROF. CATIA CONFORTINI

Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at Wellesley College in Massachusetts (USA). Confortini is the author of Intelligent Compassion: Feminist Critical Methodology in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (OUP, 2012); co-editor (with Tiina Vaittinen) of Gender Global Health and Violence: Feminist Perspectives on Peace and Disease (Rowman & Littlefield 2019); and co-editor (with Tarja Väyrynen, Élise Féron, Peace Meadie, and Swati Parashar) of The Handbook of Feminist Peace Research (Routledge 2020). Her current interests lie at the intersection of feminist peace research and global health.

DR. JIM DIMAROGONAS

Senior Researcher at the RAND Corporation. Dimarogonas currently conducts research in the areas of next-generation information technologies; sustainable development; refugees and forced migration; military space; multi-domain command and control; cyber and electronic warfare; tactical and strategic communications and networks; nuclear command and control. Prior to RAND he spent 18 years at MITRE, serving in various leadership roles such as portfolio manager for strategic and resilient communications and networks in support of the Air Force Space and Missile Center (SMC); associate department head for the satellite communications department; project director for the Joint Tactical Radio System (JTRS) program; chief engineer for the deputy assistant secretary of defense for command, control, communications space and cyber. Dimarogonas received his Ph.D. in Systems Science and Applied Mathematics from Washington University in St Louis with concentration on control theory, signal processing, and neuroscience.

DR. FERNANDA DUARTE

Federal Judge and Professor of Law at Estácio de Sá University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Duarte is Professor of Law of the Post-Graduation Program in Law of Estácio de Sá University (PPGD-UNESA, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).  Professor of Law at the Fluminense Federal University / Faculty of Law Researcher (Senior PhD) of INCT-InEAC/NUPEAC - Institute of Comparative Studies in Institutional Conflict Management/UFF (Niterói, Brazil). Organizer of the Collaborative Research Network of the Law and Society Association - CRN1: Comparative Constitutional Law and Legal Culture: Asia and the Americas. Member of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs, as a Global Ethics Fellow. Visiting Professor at Mercer Law School, Georgia/USA. PhD in Law (PUC/RJ). Federal Judge in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

DR. NAZILA GHANEA

Professor in International Human Rights Law at the University of Oxford. She serves as Associate Director of the Oxford Human Rights Hub and is a Fellow of Kellogg College (BA Keele, MA Leeds, PhD Keele, MA Oxon). She serves as a member of the OSCE Panel of Experts on Freedom of Religion or Belief and on the Board of Trustees of the independent think tank, the Universal Rights Group. She has been a visiting academic at a number of institutions including Columbia and NYU, and previously taught at the University of London and Keele University, UK and in China. Nazila’s research spans freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression, women’s rights, minority rights and human rights in the Middle East. Her publications include nine books, five UN publications as well as a number of journal articles and reports.

MS. MANAS GHANEM 

UNHCR Protection Consultant, MA Conflict Transformation, UN Foundation Fellow. Ghanem is a lawyer, Fulbright laureate, and international specialist with the United Nations. Ghanem built her international career working for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in various emergencies and post-conflict countries, including Syria, Uzbekistan, Iraq, Libya, Tunisia, Jordan and Yemen. She worked with UNICEF in Greece on child protection as part of the emergency response to the European refugees and migrant crises.

DR. GEOFF GOODWIN 

Departmental Lecturer in Development Studies, Oxford Department of International Development, University of Oxford, St Antony’s College. Goodwin is an interdisciplinary political economist, drawing principally on economics, sociology, anthropology and history. To date, his research has focused on land, water and indigenous peoples in the Ecuadorian Andes. He will expand this research into Colombia this summer. He teaches in the Department of International Development at the University of Oxford. He previously taught at the London School of Economics and University College London. 

MR. DAMIAN GORMAN 

Awarded the MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) in 1998 for his services to the Arts as a playwright and poet. Gorman has written poems throughout his life and has often turned his hand to writing about conflict. In the early 1990s he was behind the ground-breaking 'Crann' initiative, which "helped people tell, and hear, the stories of Northern Ireland's 'Troubles' through the arts", and for many years he worked with young Palestinians and Israelis on Rosemary Hollis's 'Olive Tree' project, using creative writing and storytelling as tools of dialogue and understanding. He has just finished a piece of writing commissioned to mark 50 years since the start of the 'Troubles', and his work has garnered awards as diverse as an MBE and a Better Ireland Award.

PROF. ANDREW GOSLER 

Associate Professor in Applied Ethnobiology and Conservation Fellow in Human Sciences, Mansfield College, University of Oxford. The Revd Prof Andrew Gosler is Associate Professor in Applied Ethnobiology and Conservation. A position unique to Oxford University, he sits both within and between the Edward Grey Institute of Field Ornithology (Zoology) and the Institute of Human Sciences (Anthropology).  Building on a lifelong interest in birds, and thirty years of research on woodland bird ecology, his interests now embrace ethno-ornithology, human relationships to the natural world, including Peace Studies. His career shift led to the book Ethno-ornithology: Birds, Indigenous Peoples, Culture and Society, co-edited with Sonia Tidemann. In January 2012, he presented the lecture Peace and the Environment in Libya at the University of Benghazi. With colleagues at BirdLife International, his concern to recognise the unvoiced human appreciation of birds in all its diversity resulted in EWA: The Ethno-ornithology World Atlas, of which he is Research Director. He is Co-Convenor of OxPeace, the Oxford Network for Peace Studies and in June 2018 was ordained Deacon in the Church of England. 

MR. DANIEL GREENBERG

Barrister specializing in Legislation. A Parliamentary Counsel for 20 years; he is now an officer in the House of Commons, and a writer, trainer and adviser. Greenberg is a lawyer specialising in legislation and the legislative process.  He served in the Lord Chancellor's Department from 1988 to 1991 and in the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel (UK) from 1991 to 2010.  From 2010 to 2016 he was an adviser in the Office of Speaker's Counsel, House of Commons and a consultant Parliamentary Counsel at Berwin Leighton Paisner LLP.  In August 2016 he was appointed Counsel for Domestic Legislation in the House of Commons.  He also serves as the General Editor of Westlaw UK Annotated Statutes and Insight Encyclopaedia.  He drafts primary and subordinate legislation in the UK, and has provided drafting and training services in Albania, Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Falkland Islands, Gibraltar, Isle of Man, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nigeria, South Georgia, Sri Lanka, the Solomon Islands and elsewhere.  He is also the Editor of Craies on Legislation (2004, 2008, 2012, 2017), Stroud’s Judicial Dictionary (2000, 2006, 2012, 2016) and Jowitt’s Dictionary of English Law (2010, 2015), the Editor in Chief of the Statute Law Review, the Editor of Halsbury’s Laws on Statutes, and a contributing editor to the Oxford English Dictionary.  His book Laying Down the Law was published by Thomson Reuters in 2009.  He is an Associate Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London, a teaching faculty member of the legislative drafting course of Athabasca University, a Visiting Professor at the University of Derby, and a Director of the Constitution Reform Group.

MS. EVA GROSMAN

Executive Director of the Centre for Democracy and Peace Building, London and Belfast, UK, and Research Associate at St. Benet’s Hall, University of Oxford. Grosman is CEO of Centre for Democracy and Peace Building, which provides support for political and civic society leaders, facilitates research, training and institutional development programmes to address division and violent political conflict in Northern Ireland and beyond. Eva is also a Director for Public Affairs at the Centre for the Resolution of Intractable Conflict, Research Associate at St. Benet’s Hall, University of Oxford and an Advisory Board Member for the Global Women’s Narratives Project. Eva curates TEDxStormont and is the Global Thinkers Forum mentor.

DR. YAPRAK GURSAY

Lecturer and Undergraduate Programme Director, Politics and International Relations, School of Languages and Social Sciences, Aston University, Birmingham. Prior to her appointment, Gursay was an Associate Professor at Istanbul Bilgi University in Turkey and a Senior Member of St Antony’s College at the University of Oxford. She received her PhD in politics from the University of Virginia in 2008. She has worked on regime change and consolidation, democratization, civil-military relations and coup d’états. She has published numerous articles on these subjects, covering Turkish, Greek and other Southern European countries from a comparative perspective in edited volumes and peer reviewed journals. Her book, Between Military Rule and Democracy: Regime Consolidation in Greece, Turkey, and Beyond (University of Michigan Press, 2017), examines four episodes of authoritarianism, six periods of democracy and ten short-lived coups in Greece and Turkey.

PROF. ROSEMARY HOLLIS

Emeritus Professor in IR of City University, University of London, former Director of Research at Chatham House and head of the Middle East programme at the Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies (RUSI). Professor of International Politics and Director of the Olive Tree Scholarship Programme, City, University of London (2008-2018). Director of Research (2005-08) and Head of the Middle East Programme (1995-2005) at Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs). From 1990-95 Head of the Middle East Programme at RUSI (Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies). PhD in Political Science (1988) from George Washington University in Washington, DC, where Hollis also taught for several years in the 1980s. MA in War Studies (1975) and BA in History (1974) from King’s College, University of London.

MS. TAMAR KAROSANIDZE

Former Deputy Minister of Defence of Georgia responsible for the personnel management and professional development, military education and training, internal institutional building, and transparency reforms. Founder of Transparency International in Georgia. Currently, she is a Chief of Party (CoP) at the USAID-funded civil society support project Advancing CSO Capacities and Engaging Society for Sustainability (ACCESS) project, which works to enable a more constituent-connected, organizationally mature, and financially sustainable cadre of Georgian Civil Society Organizations.

DR. RAFAEL MARIO IORIO FILHO 

Vice-Chancellor and Professor of Law at Estácio de Sá University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Iorio Filho is a lawyer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.  He is the Vice Chanceller for PhD Programs, Research and Service at Estácio de Sá University. He has Post Doctorate in Political Science by the Center for Contemporary Cultural (CEDEC, Brazil) - CNPq scholarship. He has a Ph.D. degree in Law from the Gama Filho University (UGF) in Rio de Janeiro, where his studies focused on Constitutional Law and Legal Discourse Analysis, and a Ph.D. degree in Neo-Latin Literature - Italian language from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) where his studies focused on Fascists Discourses Analysis. He also teaches at the School of Magistrates of the State of Rio de Janeiro (EMERJ). His research focuses on: the relationship between courts and society; constitutional jurisdiction and democracy; judicial reasoning and decision-making; legal discourse analysis; human rights; conflicts of law; and the role of the courts in democratic societies.  Professor Iorio Filho is the dean of the undergraduate law program of Estácio de Sá University (UNESA) which is the largest Faculty of Law in Brazil.​

MS. ANDREA MALIN

Andrea Malin has been an award-winning journalist and network television news documentary producer/writer for NBC News, ABC News, PBS, among other media outlets, and developed documentary specials for National Geographic. Through her reporting, Andrea has explored the impact of war, such as the the war in Afghanistan and World War II, and produced stories in Asia, Latin America, and, more recently, in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. Andrea’s work has twice received the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism, the Sigma Delta Chi Award for Documentary, as well as two Writers Guild Award nominations. She earned a certificate from Harvard University Medical School’s program in Global Mental Health and Refugee Trauma and holds an M.A. in International Journalism from USC's Annenberg School of Communications and Journalism, during which she reported from Mexico City and published research in the Human Rights Quarterly on motherhood as a human rights force in Latin America. Writing novels informed by her journalism, Andrea has received a fellowship from MacDowell, as well as other grants and residencies.

DR. CARLOTTA MINNELLA

Departmental Lecturer in International Relations (St. John’s College). Minnella holds a DPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford, a Master’s Degree with first class honours in International Security from Sciences Po Paris, a Master’s Degree in Diplomacy from SIOI, Rome, and a Bachelor’s Degree with first class Honours from the University of Trieste, Italy. She has held research fellowships at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University and at the START research programme on terrorism at the University of Maryland. Prior to returning to Oxford, Carlotta was an associate lecturer in International Relations at the Department of Politics at the University of York. Carlotta’s research focuses on theories of international cooperation and socio-psychological incentives to international security regime participation, specifically in the field of multilateral counter-terrorist cooperation. In particular, she is interested in counter-terrorist financing, anti-money laundering, sanctions, human rights, and in countering violent extremism (CVE) policies. She also looks at the effects of shame on state compliance with international norms.

DR. MIRIAM ORCUTT 

Medical doctor, humanitarian and consultant; coordinator UCL-Lancet Commission on Migration and Health; and Migration and Health Research Associate, Institute for Global Health at University College London (UCL). Orcutt (MBBS, MSc) is a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Conflict and Health Research Group, King’s College London, and a Steering Committee Member of the Syria Public Health Network.  She has previously worked for Médecins sans Frontières as a Migration Health Specialist (2018), the World Health Organisation as a Public Health and Migration Consultant (2017), the Humanitarian Innovation Project at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford (2015-2016), and The Public Health in Humanitarian Crises Group at LSHTM (2014-2015).  She has conducted and contributed to humanitarian consultancy work for the World Health Organisation, the World Bank, UNICEF, and various NGOs. Previously she was a medical doctor in the NHS, on the Academic Clinical Foundation Programme in Epidemiology and Global Public Health, in Newcastle upon Tyne, UK. She holds an MSc in Medical Anthropology with Distinction from Durham University and is a doctoral candidate on health system and medical-humanitarian response to forced migration and mass displacement. 

MS. HODA OSMAN

Executive editor of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism (ARIJ), one of the first organizations to encourage investigative journalism in the Middle East and North Africa, as well as a leader in I will Not Stay Silent, a major project to protect Arab journalists worldwide from gender based violence. As an investigative journalist, Hoda has worked for ABC News and CBS News investigative units, and as a correspondent for AP, PBS, France 24 and other international media outlets. Recently, she was a key contributor to The Gaza Project, a collaborative global investigative report for Forbidden Stories detailing hard evidence of Israeli military targeting of journalists in the region. Hoda runs trainings and workshops for ARIJ to build reporting skills, raise awareness about journalist safety, as well as to provide mentorship to women reporters in conflict zones. Since October 7, Hoda has been active in providing support to Palestinian journalists in Gaza and is the current president of the Arab and Middle Eastern Journalist Association (AMEJA).

DR. VAHID NICK PAY 

Lecturer in International Politics at the Diplomatic Service Programme, University of Oxford and Kellogg College. Pay is a lecturer in International Politics at Oxford University, the Diplomatic Service Programme, Department of Continuing Education. He completed his doctoral studies at the University of Durham examining Republican political philosophy in relation to competing sources of sovereignty and legitimacy notably religion. He has also several years of professional experience with public corporations including the BBC. He has held research and teaching positions in Italy, Iraq, Iran, France, the UAE and the UK. He has published extensively on various social and political topics for prominent public media and journals in Europe and the Middle East. His recent book entitled Republican Islam (London: I.B. Tauris 2016) is dedicated to a comparative study of Republican political philosophy and the role of religion, in particular Islamic political theology. His research and teaching commitments include International Politics, Political Theology, Terrorism, Constitutionalism and Republicanism.

DR. HANS PUNG 

President, Rand Europe, Cambridge, UK. Pung is president of RAND Europe, a not-for-profit public policy research organisation that helps improve policy and decision-making through research and analysis. With offices in Cambridge (UK), and Brussels (BE), RAND's staff undertakes empirical studies for public, private, and third sector clients on a diverse range of policy issues including innovation, science, health, social policy, defence, home affairs, and infrastructure.  Pung joined RAND as a policy analyst in 2002 and continues to lead and deliver research projects, particularly around industrial economics and security policy issues. He has held a range of senior leadership positions in RAND Europe, including directing RAND's European defence and security research portfolio as well as heading RAND Europe's efforts to grow and diversify into new research areas. Prior to RAND, Pung served as an engineer officer in the United States Army with responsibility for logistics, personnel, and operations and overseas service in the United Kingdom, South Korea, and Germany. He also led the emergency power response team at the Pentagon in the aftermath of 9/11.  A mathematics graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point where he commanded the United States Corps of Cadets as a senior, Pung also holds advanced degrees in mathematical modelling and modern history from Oxford University, which he attended as a (George C.) Marshall Scholar.

DR. KAREM ROITMAN 

Fellow, Higher Education Academy, Associate Lecturer, Open University. Roitman (DPhil, Oxford, FHEA) has lectured on politics, gender, race, development and Latin America in Oxford University, Regents University, and the Open University. She has also worked as a development consultant with various clients including DFID and the UN. Karem founded and directs Thinkers Meet Up, an online platform where education’s potential for global change is explored by bringing kids worldwide together to discuss human potential in its many forms. Karem was born in Ecuador, is an immigrant, and the granddaughter of refugees.

DR. MELISSA ROWE 

Vice President of Rand Corporation, Santa Monica, CA. Rowe is Vice President, Global Research Talent at the RAND Corporation, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization that helps improve policy and decisionmaking through research and analysis. Dr. Rowe leads RAND’s team of 1,500 world-class research scientists. As RAND’s principal strategic advisor on analytic capability, she cultivates interdisciplinary teams of the world’s top research talent to tackle the most complex policy problems for transformational innovation and impact. Dr. Rowe founded the Methods Centers at Pardee RAND-- six centers of excellence encompassing methodologies such as scalable analytics and computing, decision making under uncertainty, and network analysis and systems science. She also founded and directs RAND’s Impact Lab, which seeks to extend the influence of RAND’s work. Dr. Rowe serves as a board member and advisor for several organizations including: New Roads School, Development Partner Institute, Oxford Initiative for Global Ethics, and Space Ventures Coalition. Dr. Rowe’s intellectual interests include human potentials, complex and adaptive systems analysis, and the implications of technology on human performance and workforce development. She received her Ph.D. in Psychology from UCLA.

MS. YOUMNA EL SAYED

An award-winning journalist who has been based in Gaza as a correspondent for Al Jazeera English, among other international news outlets, including the Associated Press. A mother of four children covering the Israel-Hamas war, facing great danger, Youmna was able to leave Gaza with her family to Egypt, where she has been living since January 2024. Her motivation as a reporter, she says, is “to be a voice for the voiceless.”        

DR. XANTHE SCHARFF

Senior Fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security. A writer and thought-leader who focuses on gender and foreign policy, Xanthe is currently writing a book about women peacebuilders in Israel-Palestine as well as reporting on Turkish women fighting for freedom from domestic violence. She is co-founder of The Fuller Project, a global newsroom dedicated to journalism about women, with media partners that include major US and international publications and outlets such as the New York Times, the Washington Post and Foreign Policy magazine.

MS. ASIL SIDAHMED

M. Phil in International Development, Advocacy Strategy Referent with the responsibility for the development of Advocacy Strategy for Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders. She is a founder and Research Fellow of the Sana’a Center for Strategic Studies in Yemen. Sidahmed’s academic background is in legal-anthropology; she completed an MPhil in International Development at the University of Oxford in 2013. Prior to this role, Sidahmed spent a decade in the Middle East in strategic advisory and operational management roles in the non-profit and private sectors. She continues to take up field positions, such as several months in 2019 as a field coordinator at MSF's sexual and gender-based violence project in a mining town in South Africa.

MS. MAUREEN SHONGE

Governance Expert, UN Women East and Southern Africa, Oxford International Human Rights Law 2021, Bachelor of Law Honors Degree, University of Zimbabwe, Masters in Women’s Law from the South East Africa Regional Women’s Law Centre (SEARCWL), University of Zimbabwe in partnership with the Institute for Women’s Law at the University of Oslo, Norway. Completed a Masters in International Human Rights Law from Oxford University in 2019. Ms Shonge has over 10 years ofexperience working on the intersections between human rights, women’s peace and security, governance, development, and gender issues. Ms Shonge is an expert in legislative processes and parliamentary reforms; and has worked with government on policyimplementation integrating civil society perspectives in governmental processes

PROF. MILES TENDI 

Associate Professor in African Politics, African Studies Centre and Department of Politics and International Relations, Fellow of St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford.  Tendi joined the African Studies Centre in 2017-18. His post is a joint appointment with the Department of Politics and International Relations. Before moving to African Studies, he held a Departmental Lectureship in African Politics in the Oxford Department of International Development (QEH) from 2011 to 2017. Prior to joining the Oxford Department of International Development (QEH), he worked as a risk consultant for Control Risks (London). Thematically, he is interested in: Intellectuals, Society and the State; Civil-Military Relations; the existence and uses of ‘evil’ in politics; intelligence studies; and security sector reform.

DR. KERRIE THORNHILL

Assistant Professor in Gender Violence, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Research Associate at International Gender Studies Centre, Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford. Gender-based violence is second only to poverty as the most globally widespread and egregious violation of women's human rights. Post-conflict regions, such as the Mano River Region of West Africa, have experienced elevated rates of sexual assault, domestic violence, and sexual exploitation years after armed conflict has ended. As a result, governments and humanitarian organisations have developed numerous programs to address gender-based violence; yet, there is relatively little documentation of precisely what messages these campaigns convey, and their underlying beliefs and values. Thornhill’s research examines institutional and informal public discourses on sexual and gender-based violence in post-war Liberia. Prominent beliefs and narrative patterns are interpreted in relation to Liberia's social history, particularly the transformations to gender roles and relations caused by colonialism, armed conflict, and the post-war institutional restructuring. By better understanding the underlying social significance of human rights discourses, humanitarian organisations can increase the efficacy of their advocacy programs.

PROF. JENNIFER WILD

Professor of Experimental Psychology & Consultant Clinical Psychology, University of Oxford. Dr. Wild’s research focuses on three areas: memory and cognitive processes linked to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and social anxiety, treatment development and evaluation, and how best to achieve clinician competency in evidence-based interventions for psychological disorders. She is particularly interested in developing internet-based cognitive therapy treatments for anxiety disorders.  Her group has recently developed an internet-based cognitive therapy for social anxiety disorder and now plans to develop an internet-based treatment for PTSD. Her PTSD research primarily focuses on why people over-remember what they most wish to forget. She has a special interest in how traumatic memories are formed and how they drive symptoms of PTSD. She is studying how factors such as poor sleep and rumination may affect how unwanted memories develop and how they then become intrusive and easily triggered. She is also looking at how to transform traumatic memories with cognitive therapy. 

DR. LYDIA WILSON 

Research Associate of the Centre for International Studies, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. Research fellow at CRIC; research fellow and field director at Artis International; visiting research scholar at the Ralph Bunche Institute of International Studies at the Graduate Center, City University New York; visiting scholar at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Cambridge University; editor of the Cambridge Literary Review.

MS. DIANA ZEYNEB ALHINDAWI

Photojournalist based in Brooklyn, USA, but often works in areas experiencing social unrest or humanitarian emergencies. Her interests reflect her multicultural background and upbringing: born in rural Romania to a Romanian mother and Iraqi father, Diana witnessed her family experience political circumstances that landed them as refugees in the former Yugoslavia, after which they were resettled to Canada. These early experiences led her to pursue careers in humanitarian aid and in human rights. For several years, she has held management and research positions with organizations such as UN Development Programme, Save the Children and Oxfam, working on the ground in areas affected by conflict or natural disasters. Her photography has been published in the New York Times, The Sunday Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, Al Jazeera America, CNN and Vice. In 2018, she was named one of PDN's 30 New and Emerging Photographers to Watch For.