Peace News Expert Network

DSc in Political Science, Professor, Head of Department of Applied Sociology, Faculty of Sociology, Yerevan State University, Yerevan, Armenia, atanesyan@ysu.am

Dr. Ashley South has 20 years of experience as an independent author, researcher and consultant. He has a Ph.D. from the Australian National University, an MSc from SOAS (University of London), and is a Research Fellow at Chiang Mai University. His main research interests are: ethnic conflict and peace processes in Burma/Myanmar and Mindanao; forced migration (refugees and internally displaced people); politics of language and education; climate change (mitigation, adaptation and resilience).

Most of Ashley’s publications are available at his website: www.AshleySouth.co.uk

Atif Rizvi has worked for over two decades in strategic planning in tertiary education and institution building. He was educated at Harvard University and worked as a Senior Researcher in Education at the Harvard Institute for International Development (HIID). At HIID, he was also the Assistant Editor of The Forum, a joint Harvard-USAID publication dedicated to advancing basic education and literacy.

Atif was the Executive Director of the Global Matriculation Initiative (GMI) at the Worldpaper in Boston from 1996 - 1998. Following, he was a consultant for the UNESCO and World Bank Task Force on Higher Education and Society. Between 2002 - 2008, Atif was the Executive Secretary of the UNEP Sasakawa Endowment and the Prize for the Environment. He has also held positions at UNICEF, UNESCO, and the United Nations Secretariat in New York. Mr. Rizvi has worked on achievement assessment, educational access and equity, and basic education delivery in a number of conflict-affected areas.

Ayesha Jehangiris a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow with the Centre for Media Transition at the University of Technology Sydney. She completed her PhD in war, conflict, and peace journalism in September 2021 from the School of the Arts, English and Media at the University of Wollongong, where she was awarded Examiners' Commendation for Outstanding Thesis. Ayesha’s research explores the mediation of human suffering and social justice from war and conflict zones, particularly focusing on peace journalism, the refugee voice, digital self-representation, and digital borders. Ayesha is the author of Afghan Refugees, Pakistani Media and the State: The Missing Peace (Routledge, 2024). She is the inaugural Peace Fellow of the International Association of Media and Communication Research (2024-2026); a Fredrich-Ebert-Stiftung Fellow of War and Peace Journalism (Afghanistan); and an FES-Deutsche Welle Fellow of Online Journalism (Germany). She also serves as an elected co-secretary of the Journalism Education and Research Association of Australia. Before joining academia, Ayesha worked as a journalist in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Germany, and Australia.

Ayse Bala Akal is a research assistant at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and holds an MA (2020) in International Criminal and Humanitarian Law from the University of Oslo

Beatrix Geaghan-Breiner is a Research Assistant at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She recently graduated from Columbia University, where she studied the history of U.S. foreign policy.

Beltina Gjeloshi is an international PhD candidate at the intersection of social psychology and conflict resolution at George Mason University. Her research focuses on the functions of socio-psychological and emotional dynamics of conflict and reconciliation practices.

Berit Bliesemann de Guevara is a professor of International Politics at Aberystwyth University, UK, and the co-lead of the (Un-)Stitching Gazes / (Des)tejiendo Miradas project. For further information, see: https://research.aber.ac.uk/en/persons/berit-bliesemann-de-guevara

Brooke Coeis an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Oklahoma State University (USA). Her work compares regional law and organisations in the global South, and she is the author ofSovereignty in the South: Intrusive Regionalism in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia(CUP 2019).

Caleb Gichuhi is a senior specialist at PeaceTech Lab Africa, where he works on Sawa Shabab and other media and tech programs.