Peace News Expert Network

Dr. Ibrahim Bangura is an Associate Professor in the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone. Currently, he is a visiting fellow collaborating with Dr. John Gledhill at the Department of International Development, University of Oxford under the Africa Oxford Initiative (AfOx) Visiting Fellowship programme.

Dr. Bangura’s research examines peacebuilding, gender, youth engagement, and post-war transitions in West Africa. With a PhD in Economics from HHL Leipzig Graduate School of Management, he has published extensively on disarmament, peacebuilding, and social movements in Africa. His recent work includes two edited volumes on youth-led movements and the reintegration of ex-combatants in Africa. Additionally, Dr. Bangura has held roles in human rights and post-conflict transition initiatives in Sierra Leone, and as a Result Oriented Monitoring (ROM) expert, he has assessed over 100 European Union funded projects and programmes in approximately 30 countries in Africa, In 2020, he developed the Women, Peace and Security Guidelines for the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), and he is currently finalising the Gender Framework for Peace Support Operations of ECOWAS, adding practical experience to his academic expertise.

Dr. Ignasi Torrent is a senior lecturer in Politics and International Relations in the Department of Social Sciences at University of Hertfordshire. He holds a PhD in International Relations from Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. He teaches modules on peacebuilding, international conflicts, International Relations Theory and the Anthropocene. His previous academic engagements include research and teaching fellowships at University of Sierra Leone (Freetown), the City University of New York and University of Westminster (London). His research interests are framed in the area of Critical Peace and Conflict Studies, International Relations Theory, the Anthropocene and new materialisms.

Ion Marandici, Ph.D. (Rutgers U. 2017) studies the political economy of reforms across Eastern Europe and East Asia, Russian foreign policy, conflict processes across Eurasia and nationalism. His publications include articles in Nationalities Papers, Problems of Post-Communism, Eurasian Geography and Economics, Demokratizatsiya, Journal of Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society, Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies as well as chapters in collaborative volumes. Ion was the recipient of a doctoral fellowship from the Open Society Institute in New York. At Rutgers, he has been regularly teaching courses in comparative politics, international relations, research methods, and legal philosophy. In 2016, Ion was a visiting researcher at the Graduate Institute of National Development (National Taiwan University in Taipei). In 2022, he worked as a consultant on open data reforms in Central Asia as well as on anti-corruption policies in Eastern Europe for the World Bank. Ion knows several foreign languages.

Professor James Kewir Kiven is a Research Hub Leader for Central Africa at the African Leadership Centre (ALC), Nairobi.

Jamie Hagen is a queer lesbian woman working as a  Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in International Relations at Queen's University Belfast. She is the founding co-director of the Centre for Gender in Politicsand currently lead researcher on a 2022-2023 British Academy (BA) Innovation Fellowship which focuses on improving engagement with lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LBTQ) women in WPS Programming.Prior to becoming a lecturer, she worked with organizations including the Global Network of Women Peacebuilders and Peacewomen.

Jasmine R. Linabary is the Associate Director of Research and Operations for the Purdue Peace Project.

Jeff Hearn is a professor and writer in Finland (Hanken School of Economics), Sweden (Örebro University), and the UK (University of Huddersfield), and a long-term activist on changing men and masculinities. His most recent books are: Age at Work, with Wendy Parkin, Sage, 2021, Knowledge, Power and Young Sexualies, with Tamara Shefer, and Digital Gender-Sexual Violations, with Matthew Hall and Ruth Lewis, both Routledge 2022.

Dr. Jennifer Ptacek (Ph.D., Purdue University) is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the
University of Dayton in Ohio, USA. Her research examines intersections of organizational communication and health, including well-being, specifically in contexts of peacebuilding, healthcare organizations, and leadership. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses including organizational communication, health disparities, and communication for health professionals. Her published work has appeared in outlets including Health Communication, International Journal of Business Communication, and Journal of Applied Communication Research. Her recent book is titled Leader-Member Exchange and Organizational Communication: Facilitating a Healthy Work Environment (2021, Palgrave Macmillan).

Jessica Berns is President of Jessica Berns Consulting, which she founded in 2011 and has been involved with the Purdue Peace Project since its founding.

Johan Brosché is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University.