Peace News Expert Network

Dr.Lakshmi Priya is a Research Fellow at the Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi. She has a Ph.D. in West Asian Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and her doctoral thesis was on “Status of Women in Syria under Hafiz al-Assad, 1970-2000.” The thesis deals with the role of the Syrian state in empowering women during Hafiz al Assad’s rule. She wrote her M.Phil dissertation on “India’s Relations with Syria, 1991-2008.” Her research interests include domestic and foreign policy of Syria, Indo-Gulf relations and gender and feminist discourse in the Middle East. Before joining ICWA, she was a researcher with the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi, as well as Indian Social Institute, New Delhi, and has also worked at the Office of the Cultural Attaché, Embassy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, New Delhi. She has also worked as an editor for Delhi-based Arihant Publishers. Dr. Priya has a Masters in Arabic from the School of Languages in JNU and is fluent in three languages – English, Hindi and Arabic. In addition to West Asian studies, she has an interest in international relations and political theory. She has published three research articles including on the legitimacy of the Baath in Syria and the Gramscian idea of “cultural hegemony” that appeared in the prestigious social science journal – Social Action. Her other research paper on Galtung’s idea of “positive peace” in the Syrian context was published in Journal of South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies. The third on feminist discourses in Syria was published in Journal of West Asian Studies and is part of recommended reading for undergraduate curriculum in University of Bern, Switzerland. She regularly contributes articles and commentaries on contemporary developments in the Middle East. Her latest writings can be accessed here.

Madeline Rose is the senior global advocacy adviser for Mercy Corps and an advocacy trainer with Wellstone Action.

Margarita Tadevosyan is a Research Assistant Professor at Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution and the Executive Director of the Center of Peacemaking Practice. She is a scholar-practitioner of conflict resolution with a geographic concentration in the countries of the South Caucasus and post-Soviet spaces. As a practitioner, she has over a decade of experience in designing, convening, and facilitating Track II dialogue workshops, and has expertise in program design and evaluation, local–international coordination and complementarity, and civil society engagement for conflict resolution and peacebuilding. Her practical work in collaboration with Dr. Susan Allen has been supported by the US Department of State, European Union, UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Swiss MFA, UN and other major donors.

Markus Bayer is a Ph.D. student and research fellow at the University of Duisburg Essen’s Chair of International Relations and Development Policy.

Maryna Rabinovych works as a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the UiT the Arctic University of Norway as a Post-Doctoral Researcher, focusing on the consequences of the Russia’s war against Ukraine for municipalities in Arctic Norway. Her previous post-doctoral project, titled “Lowering the bar? – Compliance Negotiations and the EU-Ukraine Association Agreement”, was funded by the Research Council of Norway and implemented at the University of Agder. She holds a PhD (magna cum laude) in Legal Studies from the University of Hamburg, an LL.M “European and European Legal Studies” from the University of Hamburg and Eropa-Kolleg Hamburg, as well as an LL.B from Odesa National University. 

https://www.uia.no/en/kk/profile/marynar

Mathias Hatleskog Tjønn holds an MPhil in Modern International and Transnational History from the University in Oslo (2019) and is now a PhD Fellow affiliated with the NORMS-project at the Institute for Social Research in Oslo, Norway. He has previously worked as a research assistant at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) and is interested in migrant return policies, migration, colonial history and European contemporary history.

Matthew I. Mitchell is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, Canada.

Melanie Greenberg is the former CEO of Alliance for Peacebuilding and is a leader in the peace-building and conflict resolution field.

Milton Arteaga has been a consultant in public, private and international cooperation organizations on topics concerning the transformation of human relationships in Colombia for the past ten years. He has participated in the design, research, evaluation, systematization and implementation of projects on peacebuilding and community, teacher training, cultural transformation, education, conflict resolution, negotiation, culture and organizational well-being, collaborative work. He has extensive teaching experience in Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees education. He holds a business degree from University of South Florida and an MBA from Boston University.  He also holds a Master’s degree in Cultural Biology from the Matriztica School of Santiago de Chile. He believes in participative, dialogical and systemic approaches, focused on ethical relationships that facilitate recognition, autonomy and trust among people who live in different and equally valid multiverses.

Dr. Moosa Elayah is an Associate Professor in International Development, Peacebuilding and Conflict Studies, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (Qatar). Investigating the role of the nonviolent actors in a violent situation is his active research agenda, focusing on Yemen, Syria, and Libya but also looking at many examples of other conflicted countries. He is the author of the book “Europe and the MENA Region – Media Reporting, Conflict Resolution, and Peacebuilding” Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2022.