Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre on Conflict, Development & Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies
Elena Butti is an anthropologist, humanitarian practitioner and participatory film-maker interested in the lives of adolescents and young people at the urban margins. She holds a PhD and a Post-Doc from the University of Oxford (CSLS and DPIR, respectively). Her current book project We Are the Nobodies: Youth, violence and drug-dealing in and around Medellin is an ethnographic exploration of adolescents’ first hesitant steps into drug-related crime in contemporary Colombia. She has collaborated with several international organizations on matters related to the Youth, Peace and Security agenda. More recently, she worked as Global Youth Advisor for the humanitarian NGO War Child. She is also the author of several participatory films co-directed with young people in Colombia.
Areas of expertise include:
Contact:
Email: elena.butti@graduateinstitute.ch
Website: www.elenabutti.com
Visiting Fellow, Centre on Conflict, Development & Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies
Wladimir Fernandes is a Brazilian Ph.D. fellow at Roskilde University (Denmark), where he is currently involved in the Standardisation of Transitional Justice research project, focusing specifically on the Syrian experience with transitional justice mechanisms. The ongoing nature of the conflict in Syria and the prominence of the regime as one of the main perpetrators of human rights violations and atrocity crimes impose unique challenges to transitional justice efforts. Yet, the justice agenda has been advanced through extensive documentation of violations, court proceedings, and the creation of international institutions to assist in the truth and justice effort. Wladimir’s research investigates the conditions that have made these efforts possible in a context so adverse to justice. It explores issues of norm diffusion, civil society activism, authority, and legitimacy in the governance of justice.
Wladimir has a background in International Relations and Public Administration, and is broadly interested in global governance, norms, institutions, human rights, and transitional justice.
Areas of expertise:
Research Associate, Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies
Souhail Belhadj Klaz is a researcher and visiting professor in the Master in International and Development Studies (MINT-Graduate Institute), holds a PhD in Political Science at Sciences Po Paris. He benefits from 20 years of experience in research on politics in Syria and Tunisia and is the author of the book La Syrie de Bashar al-Asad. Anatomie d'un régime autoritaire (Belin 2013). With the support of the Gerda Henkel Foundation, he was the principal investigator of the three-year project (2016-2019) Tunisia Security Provision and Local State Authority in a Time of Transition. He is currently the leading investigator of the policy research project Mapping Military and Security Actors in the Syrian Economy and is conducting in parallel research on Migration, Mobility and the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Cooperation Process.
Areas of expertise include:
Contact:
Research Associate, Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies and Co-Director of the Center for Development and Cooperation (NADEL) at ETH Zurich
Fritz Brugger is co-director of NADEL at ETH Zurich and member of the “Swiss Minerals Observatory” Research Incubator at the Institute of Science, Technology and Policy (ISTP) at ETH Zurich. He holds a PhD in Development Studies from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. His research and teaching focuses on the governance and development outcomes of natural resource extraction, the political economy of international tax policy, and policy coherence for development.
Areas of expertise include:
Contact:
Email: fritz.brugger@nadel.ethz.ch
Assistant Professor, School of International Service (SIS), American University, Washington DC
Dr. Susanna Campbell is an Assistant Professor at the American University in Washington, D.C. She was the Principal Investigator and Co-Principal Investigator, respectively, for two large research projects: Aiding Peace? Donor Behavior in Conflict-Affected Countries funded by the Swiss Network for International Studies (SNIS) and Bad Behavior? Explaining Performance in International Peacebuilding Organizations funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), both of which were based on her dissertation research. In late 2013, she was the Principal Investigator for a multi-method evaluation of the UN Peacebuilding Fund in Burundi.
Areas of expertise include:
Africa
Peacebuilding, Statebuilding and Conflict prevention
International organizations and Organizational and Institutional Theory
International Relations
Contact:
Research Advisor on the Sociology of Non-State Armed Groups at the International Committee of the Red Cross, Switzerland
Areas of expertise include:
Contact: jerome.drevon@graduateinstitute.ch
Professor and Head of the Africa Centre for Dispute Settlement, University of Stellenbosch Business School
Brian Ganson holds a Juris Doctorate (with honors) from Harvard Law School, a Master of Arts in Law & Diplomacy from the Fletcher School of Tufts University, and a Bachelor of Arts in European Studies (with high distinction) from the University of Michigan. Mr. Ganson has broad experience developing and delivering executive education programmes for diplomats, business executives, and civil society leaders through Harvard Law School and other leading institutions. In his consulting work he advises organizations operating in particularly challenging environments.
Areas of expertise include:
Organizational capabilities for effective engagement in post-conflict and other complex environments
The impact of donor policy, priorities, and recipient relations on the effectiveness of local efforts at the intersection of peacebuilding and development
Rights compatible, interest-based approaches to the settlement of company/community conflicts
Contact: brian@ganson.org
Research Associate, Centre on Conflict, Development & Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies
Farrah Hawana is an independent researcher and freelance consultant who finished her Ph.D. in Political Science/International Relations at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in 2016. In 2006, she completed an M.A. degree in International Conflict Analysis at the University of Kent’s Brussels School of International Studies in Belgium. Her undergraduate degrees in History and International Relations were awarded by the College of William and Mary in 2004. Farrah has accumulated extensive professional experience over more than fifteen years of work with various non-governmental organizations, international institutions, and academic research/policy centers, such as the International Labour Organization and the Small Arms Survey. Most recently, she was a Lecturer in International Politics & Security at Aberystwyth University, where she taught courses and supervised dissertations at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. She is broadly interested in exploring questions of power, legitimacy, security, and justice, and in understanding complex political change, with specific focus on the Middle East and North Africa.
Areas of expertise:
Contact: farrah.hawana@graduateinstitute.ch
Research Associate, Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding, Senior Advisor and lead on the Future of Arms Control Project
Dr. Ibrahim is a Research Associate, Senior Advisor and lead to the Future of Arms Control Project at the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP), at the Geneva Graduate Institute. Abdulla is researching international conflicts with over twelve years of expertise in multilateral dialogues and research processes. He is also a Nonresident Fellow with the Stimson Center, and an adjunct fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington DC. Abdulla’s research interests at the CCDP span topics ranging from arms control to European security, armed groups and armed forces consolidation, U.S. and Russian foreign policies and relations, to the current and future challenges to international order. Abdulla holds a PhD in international relations and political science from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva (IHEID); and an MA from the Kroc Institute at the University of Notre Dame.
Areas of expertise include:
Languages spoken: English, Arabic, French
Contact: abdulla.ibrahim@graduateinstitute.ch
Director of Studies at the Changing Character of War Programme (Pembroke College) and Research Associate at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, UK
Dr Annette Idler is the Director of Studies at the Changing Character of War Programme, Pembroke College, and Research Associate at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. She holds a doctorate from the Department of International Development and St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford and a MA in International Relations from the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. Dr Idler’s work focuses on the interface of conflict, security, transnational organized crime and peacebuilding, and the role that violent non-state actors play in these dynamics.
Areas of expertise include:
Interactions and trends among violent non-state actors
Nexus of conflict, security and transnational organised crime
Illicit drug trade and drug policy
Conflict prevention and peacebuilding
Borderlands
Colombia's armed conflict and citizen security in Latin America
Contact: annette.idler@politics.ox.ac.uk
Research Associate, Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies
Neil Buhne served the United Nations over 37 years in 9 countries from 1984 to 2021 before in 2022 joining CCDP as a Research Associate, and Mc Gill University’s Institute for Studies in International Development as a Professor of Practice. His focus at the UN was on bringing its different elements together to do better work for people at the country level, through development cooperation, humanitarian assistance and peace building. He did this most recently as Regional Director, Asia-Pacific, for the United Nations Development Coordination Office based in Bangkok, and before that in Pakistan and Sri Lanka as United Nations Resident Coordinator/Humanitarian Coordinator and UNDP Resident Representative. Earlier he was UN RC/UNDP RR in Bulgaria and Belarus, as well as Acting RC and UNDP RR/Deputy RR in Malaysia. His first involvement with the Graduate Institute was in 2011, when he led UNDP’s engagement with the Geneva humanitarian and peace-building communities as head of the Geneva office UNDP’ Bureau for Crisis Prevention and Recovery, and later as Director of UNDP’s integrated Geneva Liaison Office. He continues to engage as a consultant to help improve the UN’s work at the country level.
Areas of expertise:
Contact: neil.buhne@graduateinstitute.ch
SNSF Postdoctoral Researcher / Visiting Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre, European University Institute, Florence
Vassily A. Klimentov is a Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Postdoctoral researcher/ Visiting Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre at the European University Institute in Florence. His research is focusing on the insurgencies in the North Caucasus. He is also a Research Associate at the Pierre du Bois Foundation in Geneva. He has received his PhD in International History from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies. He also holds a MA in General History from the University of Geneva and a MA in Asian Studies from the Graduate Institute and the University of Geneva. Vassily A. Klimentov has previously worked for several years with humanitarian NGOs as an analyst and a needs and security assessment coordinator. He has notably been posted for two years in the Middle East.
Areas of Expertise include:
Research Associate, Centre on Conflict, Development & Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies
Masayo worked with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) from August 1995 until May 2022. She covered geographical desks (Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific) as well as emergency preparedness, capacity development, and policy, leading up to the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the SDGs in 2015. Before joining OCHA in Geneva, she worked with the United Nations Centre for Regional Development (UNCRD) in Japan, the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) in Japan and in Paraguay, and with the UN Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL) as electoral officer monitoring the first presidential election following the peace accord. In 2010-2011, Masayo spent her UN Sabbatical Programme period at the CCDP, which led to Linking Humanitarian Action and Peacebuilding (CCDP Working Paper No. 7). She then completed a second master’s degree in international relations and political science at IHEID in 2014. Beforehand, she received an MA in Latin American Studies from Stanford University in 1990s.
In 2014, she started a capacity development seminar for OCHA staff with the UN System Staff College (UNSSC), entitled, “Conflict Analysis for linking Humanitarian Action and Peacebuilding (CAHAPB)” and the following seminar with CCDP. This was the precursor to the Action Learning for Conflict Analysis (ALCA) project. She contributed to the first and second phase of ALCA. She is currently working on a follow-up project to ALCA, focusing on community engagement.
Areas of expertise:
Contact: masayo.kondo@graudateinstitute.ch
Research Director of the Igarapé Institute and Professor at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Dr. Robert Muggah is the Research Director of the Igarapé Institute, a Principal of the SecDev Group, and a professor at the Instituto de Relações Internacionais, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro. From Brazil he directs several projects on international cooperation, peace-support operations, transnational organized crime, citizen security and violence prevention, and humanitarian action in non-war settings across Latin America and the Caribbean. He currently oversees the humanitarian action in situations other than war (HASOW) project, the States of Fragility project, and the Urban Resilience project. He also advises the High Level Panel on the post-2015 development agenda. Dr. Muggah received his DPhil at Oxford University and his MPhil at the Institute for Development Studies (IDS), University of Sussex.
Areas of expertise include:
Security promotion and armed violence reduction in complex environments
Risks and responses to population displacement and resettlement
State-building, stabilization and fragility and the political economy of securitization
Urbanisation and forms of institutional resilience
Contact: robert.muggah@graduateinstitute.ch
Visiting Professor, MINT Programme
Ambassador (ret.)
Associate Fellow, GCSP
Fred Tanner is currently a Visiting Professor at the Graduate Institute and an Associate Fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) in Geneva. He previously served as Senior Adviser to the Secretary General of the OSCE, and subsequently, at the Swiss MFA in Crisis Management. For seven years, he was the Director of the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP). He recently conducted research on peace missions as Practitioner-in-Residence at the Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver. While at the OSCE, he was also the project leader of a Lessons Learned Project on the performance of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission (SMM) in Ukraine. Earlier he was a member of the UN Secretary-General Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters (ABDM) and serves now on the Boards of the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Regional Office and the International Institute for Peace, Vienna.
Languages spoken:
English, French, German
Areas of expertise include:
Peacebuilding, peacekeeping, peacemaking
International organisations, UN, OSCE, OSCE Network
Institutional approach to conflict prevention, conflict management and mediation support
European and global security
Armed and protracted conflicts
Arms control and disarmament, conventional arms control, CSBMs, risk reduction
Contact: fred.tanner@graduateinstitute.ch
Academic Coordinator for Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Region, Executive Master in Development Policies & Practices (DPP) Researcher and Program Lead at the Small Arms SurveyProgram Director of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network, a member of the Palestinian Strategic Thinking Group
Alaa Tartir is a research associate at the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP). Amongst other positions, Tartir was a post-doctoral fellow at The Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), a visiting scholar and lecturer at Utrecht University, and a researcher in international development studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where he earned his PhD. Tartir is the co-editor of Palestine and Rule of Power: Local Dissent vs. International Governance (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), and the author of Policing Palestine: Securitising Peace and Criminalising Resistance in the West Bank (Pluto Press, 2019).
Areas of expertise include:
Contact: alaa.tartir@graduateinstitute.ch and full profile.
Research Associate at the Centre on Conflict, Development & Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies
Djacoba Liva Tehindrazanarivelo holds a PhD in International Law from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, a Certificate of the Centre for Studies and Research of the Hague Academy of International Law, and a Maîtrise in Public Law and Political Science from the University of Antananarivo, Madagascar. For the past 16 years he has been teaching Public International Law, international organizations, UN peace mechanism, human rights, conflict resolution, the Responsibility to protect, and the law and practices of law in Africa – at the Graduate Institute, Boston University Study Abroad Geneva, the Institute for Human Rights (Catholic University of Lyon) and at University of Geneva. As a practitioner, he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Madagascar (January 2020 – August 2021); he is also a member of the France-Madagascar Mixed Claims Commission relating to the dispute over islands off the West coast of Madagascar (since November 2019), and has conducted consultancies with various international organizations.
M. Tehindrazanarivelo is author of two books on the unintended effects of United Nations sanctions and on racism against migrants in Europe. He has moreover co-edited four other books, and published articles on a variety of topics in International Law, African Union Law, peace and security, human rights, and the fight against impunity.
Areas of expertise include:
Research Associate at the Centre on Conflict, Development & Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies
Khalid Tinasti is a political scientist. He also serves as a Visiting Fellow at the International Center on Drug Policy Studies at Shanghai University, and taught international drug policy as a Visiting Lecturer at the Geneva Graduate Institute (2021-2022) where he supervises Master students theses on drug control policies. He is the Director of External Relations at the Climate Overshoot Commission, and the former Director of the Global Commission on Drug Policy. Before joining the Global Commission’s Secretariat in 2013 as a Policy Analyst, he worked as an independent consultant for UNAIDS, WHO, the Graduate Institute and others. Prior to that, Khalid worked as a Press and Communications Officer in the office of the Minister of Urban Cohesion (ministre de la Ville) in France, and as an Executive Officer in Gabon. Khalid holds a PhD in political science from the Institut Catholique de Paris, and held research fellowships at the Global Health Programme at the Geneva Graduate Institute (2015-16), at the Global Studies Institute at the University of Geneva (2018-2021) and an honorary fellowship at Swansea University (2016-20).
Areas of expertise include:
Research Associate, Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies
Robert joined the CCDP after a 35-year career working for international organisations in political, humanitarian, development and post-conflict recovery areas in some 13 different countries, principally in the Middle East, Central, and South Asia. He served for the United Nations as Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary General in Lebanon (2011-2014) and Afghanistan (2009-2011) at the level of Assistant Secretary General, as well as UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Bangladesh (2015-17), Djibouti (2014), and Georgia (2006-2009). Since retiring from the UN at the end of 2017, he has taught as a Practitioner at the Graduate Institute and at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy, and presented papers on Conflict Prevention at AUB, Lebanon, and the University of Tianjin, China. He holds an MA in International Affairs from the Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa. He was a contributor to the Action Learning for Conflict Analysis (ALCA) project on “Promoting System-Wide Analytical Capabilities across the Triple Nexus.”
Areas of expertise include:
Contact: robert.watkins@graduateinstitute.ch
Research Associate, Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies
Pamina Firchow is Associate Professor of Coexistence and Conflict Resolution. She is interested in how the international community responds to conflicts and, in particular, how everyday people receive those interventions. Therefore she works on issues related to peacebuilding, transitional justice and reconciliation, as well as methodological questions related to measurement and monitoring and evaluation of international interventions in conflict-affected contexts. Professor Firchow's specific focus is on the role of concept formation in the measurement and evaluation of external interventions and how local people can be included in these processes.. Therefore, her work supports efforts that promote participatory numbers and mixed method research, such as the Everyday Peace Indicators, a major research program and 501c3 nonprofit working on participatory research and evaluation. The use of participatory statistics is used to make claims about the effectiveness of local level interventions after war in Firchow’s award winning monograph, Reclaiming Everyday Peace: Local Voices in Measurement and Evaluation after War (2018, Cambridge University Press). Firchow has published widely, including in top peer reviewed journals such as the International Journal of Transitional Justice, Sociological Methods and Research, PS Political Science, Action Research, International Studies Review, Human Rights Review, and Human Rights Practice. She regularly advises projects and programs within the World Bank, USIP, USAID, UN agencies and various non-profits globally. Professor Firchow completed her PhD in Development Studies at the Graduate Institute in 2009.
Areas of expertise include:
Languages spoken: English, German, Spanish, Italian
Contact: pfirchow@brandeis.edu, paminafirchow.org
Research Associate, Centre on Conflict, Development & Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies
Ashley Jackson is a co-drector at the Centre on Armed Groups, an NGO focused of research and engagement with armed actors to reduce conflict and civilian suffering. Ashley’s research and policy work broadly focus on armed groups, conflict, peacebuilding, political economy, humanitarianism and international aid. She began her career as an aid worker in southeast Asia and Afghanistan, with the Red Cross, Oxfam and the UN. She has written widely on negotiating with armed groups and advised various UN agencies, NGOs and governments on humanitarian access and conflict mediation.
She has written extensively on the conflict in Afghanistan and the Taliban. Her first book, Negotiating Survival: Civilian-Insurgent Relations in Afghanistan (Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2021), focuses on life under Taliban rule and the nature of civilian agency in wartime. She has also advised the UK Parliament, the US State Department and others on the Afghan war.
In addition to her academic and policy work, Ashley has written for Foreign Policy, the New York Times, Washington Post, Al Jazeera, Politico, and others. Ashley holds a PhD from the War Studies Department at King’s College London, an MSc in Gender and Development from the London School of Economics.
Areas of expertise:
Research Associate, Centre on Conflict, Development & Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies
Florian Weigand is Co-Director of the Centre on Armed Groups. His research examines conflict zones, borderlands and other complex environments, how they function and are governed. Florian is the author of books such as Waiting for Dignity: Legitimacy and Authority in Afghanistan (2022) and Conflict and Transnational Crime: Borders, Bullets & Business in Southeast Asia (2020). He also is the co-editor of the Routledge Handbook on Smuggling (2021) and the author of many journal articles, book chapters and reports that explore themes related to armed groups, conflict dynamics, peacebuilding, informal taxation, risk management, and the political economy.
Among other roles, Florian has worked for the United Nations and other international organisations in Afghanistan, Indonesia, Myanmar, Thailand, and the Philippines in political affairs, international development and analysis. He holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) and Master degrees from the LSE and the University of Oxford.
Areas of expertise:
Contact:
Centre: www.armedgroupscentre.org/network/florian-weigand
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/florianweigand
Twitter: https://x.com/florian_weigand
Research Associate, Centre on Conflict, Development & Peacebuilding, Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies
Corinne Aurelie Moussi is a former Postdoctoral Fellow at the Gender Centre of the Graduate Institute of Geneva, where she researched the impact of militarization on women's security in Cameroon. She is also a former Amsterdam Centre for International Criminal Justice Fellow.
Corinne holds a PhD in Political Science from Stellenbosch University, along with two master’s degrees: an MPhil in Sexual and Reproductive Rights from the University of Pretoria and an MPhil in International Law from the University of Cape Town. Her professional experience includes serving as a legal intern at the International Criminal Court and holding research roles focused on gender justice and human security. She has been awarded several prestigious fellowships, including the Swiss Confederation Excellence Fellowship, the Lisa Maskell Fellowship, and the Canadian Partnership for International Justice Fellowship. Corinne is fluent in both English and French.
Areas of expertise: