Core Team
Meet the Core Programme Team
Professor Christine Bell, FBA, FRSE
Programme Director, Steering Committee
Professor Christine Bell is Assistant Principal (Global Justice), and Professor of Constitutional Law, School of Law, University of Edinburgh. She is the Principal Investigator and Director of the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep). Her research interests lie in the interface between constitutional and international law, gender and conflict, and legal theory, with a particular interest in peace processes and their agreements.
Dr Harriet Cornell, FSA Scot, FHEA
Programme Manager, Steering Committee
Dr Harriet Cornell is the Programme Manager at the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep). Harriet completed a PhD in Economic and Social History, an MSc by Research and an MA (Hons) in History at the University of Edinburgh. Harriet’s interest in global justice stems from her research on power, authority, law and the State in early modern Scotland, including the implications of ‘Statecraft’ for the lives of ordinary people. From March 2019, she is seconded from the Global Justice Academy to PeaceRep. Harriet is a Steering Committee Member of the Global Justice Academy and genderED, as well as for PeaceRep.
Dr Sanja Badanjak
Chancellor’s Fellow in Global Challenges
Dr Sanja Badanjak is a Chancellor’s Fellow in Global Challenges at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Law, and an affiliate of the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep), where she has been working as data manager for PA-X Peace Agreements Database and Dataset. Her research interests include the applications of quantitative and text-as-data methods in the study of institutions, elections, and peace processes. She completed her PhD in political science at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, and holds and MA degree in political science from the Central European University, and a BA in political science from the University of Zagreb.
Dr Juline Beaujouan
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Dr Juline Beaujouan is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep), based at the University of Edinburgh. Juline’s research explores the inclusion of non-state actors and minorities in peace agreements, particularly in the MENA region. Juline received her Ph.D from Durham University where she was awarded the al-Sabah doctoral fellowship. Juline has also completed an MSc in Defence, Development and Diplomacy at Durham University, an MA in International Studies from University Paris-Sud XI, and a double BA in International Law, Languages and Civilisations from the same university. She completed a certificate in Arabic and History of the Near and Middle East at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London.
Devanjan Bhattacharya
Train@Ed Postdoctoral Fellow
Devanjan is a Train@Ed Postdoctoral Fellow with the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep), focusing on collaborative map visualisations for participation and mediation in peace processes. Devanjan holds a PhD and Masters degree in Geomatics Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology. His research interests include geospatial data analytics, digital mapping, smart cities applications, spatial data infrastructure, internet of things, and artificial intelligence in geoinformatics.
Allyson Doby
Communications Manager
Allyson Doby is the Communications Manager with the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep), based at the University of Edinburgh. She holds an MSc in Human Rights from The London School of Economics and Political Science and a BA in International Affairs and Spanish from James Madison University. Her research interests include women’s rights, global inequality, and social justice. Prior to joining PeaceRep, Allyson worked in international development and citizenship organisations in the UK and Central Asia.
Adam Farquhar
Research Associate and Data Officer
Adam Farquhar is a Research Associate and Data Officer at the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep). He supports the management, development, and coding of the PA-X Peace Agreement Database and its sub-databases. Adam has an MA in Comparative Ethnic Conflict from Queens University Belfast and a BA in International Studies from Huntingdon College in Montgomery, Alabama, USA.
Niamh Henry
Data Engineer
Niamh Henry is a Data Engineer with the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep), based at the University of Edinburgh. She holds an MA in Digital Media and Information Studies from the University of Glasgow, and an MSc in Information Systems from the University of Amsterdam. She is working on accessibility, organisation, and analysis of the PA-X database to facilitate qualitative and quantitative research methods in this programme.
Stephanie Lewis
Stephanie Lewis is the Finance and Projects Officer for the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep). She manages the project budget, financial reporting, and supports the programme’s ethics and due diligence processes. Stephanie is based in the School of Law’s Research Knowledge Exchange and Impact Office.
Dr Kathryn Nash
Chancellor’s Fellow
Dr Kathryn Nash is a Chancellor’s Fellow, based at the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests include regional approaches to peace processes. Previously she has researched regional organisations in Africa and normative and institutional change. Kathryn received her PhD from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London and has a Master’s degree from Georgetown University in Conflict Resolution. Prior to beginning her PhD, she worked for several years at the U.S. Department of State, first in the Bureau of African Affairs and then in the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilisation Operations.
Dr Asanga Welikala
Dr Asanga Welikala is Lecturer in Public Law at the School of Law, University of Edinburgh, and Associate Director of the Edinburgh Centre for Constitutional Law. His research interests lie broadly in comparative constitutional law, applied constitutional theory, and Commonwealth constitutional history, and more specifically in the constitutional accommodation of national pluralism. He is involved in and advises the peace processes and concepts theme projects of GJA.
Laura Wise
Research Fellow and Programme Co-ordinator
Laura Wise is a Research Fellow and Prorgamme Co-ordinator with the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep), based at the University of Edinburgh. Her research explores the intersections between minority and territorial politics in the context of peace processes and post-conflict societies. She focuses on sub-national political settlements, local peace agreements, non-dominant minorities, and kin-state politics in borderlands, with a particular interest in Southeastern Europe. Laura holds an MA in Comparative Ethnic Conflict from Queen’s University Belfast and a BSc Econ in International Politics from Aberystwyth University.
Robert Wilson
Research Fellow and Policy Co-ordinator
Robert Wilson is a Research Fellow and Policy Co-ordinator with the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep). His research explores local peace processes, examining the impact of inter-group dynamics on processes and the agency of traditionally marginalised local groups, with a particular focus on Yemen. He is also part of supporting research into using experiences and findings of peacebuilding as a source of rapid reaction policy advice. Robert holds an MA Hons. in Politics and History and an MSc. in International Relations from the University of Glasgow.
Dr Jan Pospisil
ASPR Research Director, Steering Committee
Dr Jan Pospisil is a Research Director at the Austrian Study Center for Peace and Conflict Resolution, and a researcher at the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep). His research interests are international security- and development policy, resilience, state legitimacy, state fragility and statebuilding, peace processes and theories of International Relations.
Dr Monalisa Adhikari
Dr Monalisa Adhikari is a Lecturer in International Relations at the School of Social, Political and Global Studies, Keele University. Prior to joining Keele, she was a Research Fellow with the Political Settlements Research Programme at the University of Edinburgh. She obtained her PhD in International Relations from the University of Edinburgh in 2020. Her primary research interests include peace processes, international interventions in fragile and conflict-affected states, rising powers engagement in the global governance of peace and security, and foreign policies of India and China. She has conducted research in China, India, Myanmar and Nepal.
Dr Rebecca Sutton
Programme Associate
Dr Rebecca Sutton is a Senior Lecturer in International Law at the University of Glasgow School of Law, where she convenes the LLM Law of Armed Conflict course. Previously, Rebecca was a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow at Edinburgh Law School, where she convened the LLM Human Rights and Conflict Resolution course and led a PSRP project on Rohingya rights in Cox’s Bazar. From 2018-2020, Rebecca was a post-doctoral researcher on the ERC-funded ‘Individualization of War’ project at the University of Oxford, and a post-doctoral fellow at McGill University. Rebecca received her PhD in Law in 2018 from the London School of Economics, where she was a Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation scholar and a SSHRC doctoral scholar. She holds a JD and a Certificate in Aboriginal Legal Studies from the University of Toronto, and an MSc in Violence, Conflict and Development from SOAS, University of London. Rebecca is licensed to practice law as a Barrister and Solicitor in Ontario, Canada. Rebecca’s current research agenda explores the role of emotions in International Humanitarian Law (IHL); frontline humanitarian negotiations; innovations in IHL pedagogy; and ‘participatory action research’ methodologies for working with displaced youth. Her first monograph, The Humanitarian Civilian: How the Idea of Distinction Circulates Within and Beyond IHL, was published by OUP in 2021.
Professor Michael Semple
Professor Michael Semple is Practitioner Chair at The Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice, Queens University Belfast. He works on innovative approaches to peace-making and engagement with militant Islamic movements in Afghanistan and South Asia. His interests include the political culture of the Afghan Taliban and kindred militant Islamic movements, the role and potential of dialogue and social media in conflict transformation, and the challenge of pluralism in the post 9/11 Muslim world.
Professor Louise Mallinder
Professor Louise Mallinder is a Professor of Law at Queens University Belfast. Before taking up this post, she was Professor of Human Rights and International Law at TJI at Ulster University. Her research interests include amnesty laws, transitional justice, international criminal law, international humanitarian law, international human rights law, restorative justice, database research and socio-legal research.
Aden Abdi
Africa Department Director
Aden Abdi is Africa Department Director at Conciliation Resources, covering the Horn of Africa, East and Central Africa and West Africa. Aden has over 14 years of experience supporting and implementing governance and peacebuilding programmes in Kenya, Somalia, and Ethiopia. He has worked with a wide range of local, regional and national governments, opposition groups, civil society actors, local communities and donor governments in the Horn of Africa region.
Dr Alexander Ramsbotham
Director of Research and Innovation, Steering Committee
Dr Alexander Ramsbotham is Director of Research and Innovation, Conciliation Resources. He worked as specialist adviser to the House of Lords European Union (EU) Select Committee in its inquiry into the EU Strategy for Africa. Before that he was Head of the Peace and Security Programme at the United Nations Association-UK. He is responsible for the production of Accord and related products, as well as the dissemination across Conciliation Resources’ projects.
Sumit Bisarya
Former Head of Constitution-Building Processes, Steering Committee.
Sumit Bisarya is the Head of Constitution-Building Processes at International IDEA. He is currently seconded to the UN until January 2022. Bisarya develops global comparative knowledge, policy and advocacy resources and provides technical support to in-country constitution reform programs. Previously, he worked with the International Development Law Organization based in Rome, Italy where he was manager of IDLO’s field programmes. He designed, managed and implemented rule of law assistance programmes in Afghanistan and East/Horn of Africa (Ethiopia, South Sudan, Kenya and Somalia). Bisarya has been engaged in constitution-building assistance programmes in a range of countries and contexts including Tunisia, Nepal, Myanmar, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan and most recently in Chile and Ukraine.
Kimana Zulueta-Fülscher
Acting Head of Constitution-Building, Steering Committee
Kimana Zulueta-Fülscher is the Acting Head of Constitution-Building at International IDEA and a PCREP Steering Committee member. Her research and work focuses on comparative constitutional process and design, with a special emphasis on constitution-building processes in fragile and conflict-affected settings. Amongst others, she developed the database on constitution-building processes in conflict-affected settings, and published papers on Sequencing Peace Agreements and Constitutions in Political Settlement Processes (co-authored with Prof. Christine Bell, November 216), Substate Constitutions (co-authored with Dr Asanga Welikala, November 2017), and (S)electing Constitution-Making Bodies in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Settings (co-authored with Sumit Bisarya, forthcoming). She is also the former head of the Democracy, Conflict and Security unit, where, amongst others, she managed a project on the nexus between organized crime and politics, and developed International IDEA’s institutional policy on mainstreaming conflict sensitivity.
Erin Houlihan
Programme Officer
Erin Colleen Houlihan is a Programme Officer with the Constitution-Building Programme at International IDEA. Houlihan supports governments and civil society actors engaged in constitution-building processes around the word. Her research and advising work focus on fragile and conflict-affected contexts, and particularly on democratization and post-conflict transitions. She provides technical support to in-country constitution reform efforts in the areas of process design and constitutional content, including support to forge political consensus around contentious issues. Houlihan also develops global comparative knowledge products, policy and advocacy resources, and educational materials on comparative constitutional concepts and issues. Houlihan founded the annual Women Constitution-Makers Dialogue series in partnership with the Political Settlements Research Programme of the University of Edinburgh.
Professor Mary Kaldor
Professor Mary Kaldor is Professor of Global Governance and Director of the Conflict and Civil Society Research Unit in the LSE Department of International Development. Professor Kaldor also directed the unit’s largest research project, the Conflict Research Programme (CRP), now known as LSE IDEAS, an international FCDO-funded partnership investigating public authority, through a theoretical lens of the political marketplace and the concept of civicness, across a range of countries in Africa and the Middle East.
Zaki Mehchy
Zaki Mehchy is a researcher at the Syria conflict research programme at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is a senior consulting fellow at Chatham House and a co-founder of the Syrian Center for Policy Research. His work focuses on development policies, socio-economic impact of the crisis in Syria, poverty and multidimensional deprivation, labor force, local governance, and community empowerment.
Dr Matthew Benson
Dr Matthew Benson is a Researcher within and the Research Manager for LSE IDEAS, as part of the Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep). Matthew’s present research examines civic engagement and public authority in local peace processes in South Sudan and Sudan. Matthew has also researched how people have experienced, and shaped, public authority and relations between the centre and the peripheries in the Sudans through tax bargaining. Over the past 15 years, Matthew has held posts in South Sudan with Crown Agents and Sudan with Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and researched how to provide public services more equitably in conflict-affected societies with the World Bank, the Rift Valley Institute (RVI), the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex, the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and Oxfam America.
Professor Alex De Waal
Research Programme Director, Steering Committee
Professor Alex De Waal is Executive Director of the World Peace Foundation and Research Programme Director with the Conflict Research Programme (now LSE IDEAS) at LSE. He also contributes to CPAID research at the Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa. Prof de Waal is one of the foremost experts on Sudan, South Sudan and the Horn of Africa with particular reference to humanitarian crisis and response, conflict, mediation and peacebuilding. He has served with the African Union mediation team on Darfur and as an advisor to the African Union High Level Implementation Panel for Sudan.
Dr Rim Turkmani
Research Fellow, Director of Syria Conflict Research Programme (CRP)
Dr Rim Turkmani is a Research Fellow at LSE IDEAS. She directs the Syria conflict research programme and is a is the principal investigator of the research project Legitimacy and citizenship in the Arab world project. She is member of the LSE Middle East Centre Academic Committee and is a member of the Women’s Advisory Board to the UN special envoy to Syria. Her research work focuses on legitimate governance in the Middle East and local conflict and peace drivers. She pioneered new methods in collecting data in conflict zones in MappingSyria.org project and ‘Crowd-sourcing Conflict and Peace ‘Events’ in the Syrian conflict’ which produced a detailed database of instances of violence and peace-making.
Taif Alkhudary
Taif Alkhudary is an Iraq-focused Research Officer working on the project Managing Religious Diversity in the Middle East: The Muhasasa Ta’ifia in Iraq, 2003–2018 and the Conflict Research Programme. She previously conducted research on women’s and girls’ rights and strategic litigation on cases of enforced disappearances, torture, arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killings in the Gulf and Iraq. She holds a BA in History of Art from UCL and an MSc in Human Rights from the LSE.
Professor Toby Dodge
Professor, Steering Committee
Professor Toby Dodge is a Professor in the Department of International Relations at LSE, where he is Deputy Head of the Department (PhD and Research). He is also Kuwait Professor and Director of the Kuwait Programme, Middle East Centre. Toby also served as Iraq Research Director for the DFID-funded Conflict Research Programme (CRP).
