Peace News Expert Network

Dr Ronan Lee is an Irish-Australian Doctoral Prize Fellow at Loughborough University London where he researches the meaning of social vitality for Rohingya refugees. In 2021 he was awarded the Early Career Emerging Scholar Prize by the International Association of Genocide Scholars. He was formerly a visiting scholar at Queen Mary University of London’s International State Crime Initiative. His research interests include Myanmar, the Rohingya, genocide, hate speech, and politics.

Roselyne Omondi is a conflict and peace expert and a skilled researcher-writer-editor with broad social science and humanities backgrounds. She is adept at working at the intersection of research, and policy; communication, journalism, and media; international development; and humanitarian action. While her recent work has focused on the greater Horn of Africa region, she has a good grasp of current affairs, and a global outlook. Her research interests span, inter alia, armed conflict, peace, forced migration, food insecurity, pastoralism, terrorism, geopolitics, climate change, and development. She has excellent project management, conflict mapping, media analysis skills, and strategic crisis communication skills. Different research, media, and international development entities have featured her work.

Roselyne holds Erasmus Mundus Master of Art degree in Journalism, Media and Globalization- War and Conflict Specialization (Denmark and United Kingdom); Erasmus Mundus Master of Arts degree in International Humanitarian Action – Comprehensive Security Specialization (the Netherlands); a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology and English Language (Kenya); and several other post-graduate qualifications including: Peace and Conflict Research (University of Oslo and PRIO, Norway), Terrorism Theory and Practice (the Netherlands), Advanced Field Safety and Security (Germany and Kenya), and Advanced Grammar (the UK). She was, until recently (November 2022), the Associate Director, Research, at the HORN Institute, and is set to become the Associate Director, Center for Climate Change, Migration, and Development, at the Institute.

Dr. Saliba Sarsar is a Professor of Political Science at Monmouth University and President/CEO of the Jerusalem Peace Institute. His teaching and scholarly interests focus on the Middle East, Palestinian-Israeli affairs, Jerusalem, and peacebuilding. Among his authored books are Peacebuilding in Israeli-Palestinian Relations(2020) and Jerusalem: The Home in Our Hearts(2018). His edited books include The Holy Land Confederation as a Facilitator for the Two-State Solution (2022) and What Jerusalem Means to Us: Christian Perspectives and Reflections(2018). His most recent co-edited books are Democracy in Crisis Around the World (2020); Continuity and Change in Political Culture: Israel and Beyond (2020), and What Jerusalem Means to Us: Muslim Perspectives and Reflections(2021).

Dr. Sarsar is also a peace advocate and a public speaker. He is the co-Founder and President/ CEO of the Jerusalem Peace Institute, a non-profit that highlights Jerusalem as humanity’s shared gift as central for a just peace.

Samer Abboud is Associate Professor of Global Interdisciplinary Studies at Villanova University and the author of the book Syria (Polity, 2018).

Sawssan Abou-Zahr is a Lebanese journalist, editor and consultant. She covers issues related to  Syria, Palestine, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.

Shabir Hussain is a peace academic based in Islamabad, Pakistan. He has published extensively on the current practices of conflict coverage in Pakistan and devising peace-oriented media strategies for constructive reporting. He can be reached at shasain2@gmail.com.

Spogmai Akseer has over 16 years of experience working in the field of educational development and research in Canada and internationally focusing on gender and conflict. She has worked as a consultant with UNICEF and UNESCO on various educational initiatives to improve educational equity and equality in the Global South, particularly in conflict-affected environments. Recently she supported UNESCO-IIEP in the development of a continental report examining Sustainable Development Goal 4 and the African Union’s Continental Education Strategy for Africa. Previously, Spogmai managed a USAID-funded project to help develop new graduate degree programs, as well as Registrar and professor at the American University of Afghanistan. In these roles, she worked closely with the Ministry of Higher Education of Afghanistan to develop a national quality assurance and accreditation framework, as well as a graduate education policy framework. Presently, Spogmai is working on the implementation and monitoring of the Ministry of Education’s anti-oppression and anti-racism directives across over 250 elementary and secondary schools in Ontario, Canada. She has a PhD in Education and Comparative, International Development Education from the University of Toronto.

Stacey L. Connoughton is an Associate Professor in the Brian Lamb School of Communication and the Director of the Purdue Peace Project.

Steven Youngblood is the founding director of the Center for Global Peace Journalism at Park University in Parkville, USA.

Thursica Kovinthan Levi is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow and lecturer at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE), University of Toronto. Her current research focuses on trauma-informed pedagogies for integration and reconciliation in refugee education. This research builds on her doctoral dissertation examining the interface between gender, education, and conflict in fragile contexts, focusing on Sri Lanka. She has worked and conducted research in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Central America with various NGOs and as a research consultant. Thursica is also an educator with the Toronto District School Board, where she teaches children with refugee experiences. She has worked as an Education Policy Analyst at Global Affairs Canada and Part-time Professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Ottawa. Thursica holds a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Ottawa and a M.A in Child Studies and Education from OISE.