Susanne joined UNSW Sydney in 2015 as a Lecturer in Development Studies. A trained social worker and PhD in sociology, she worked for over twenty years at the intersection of peace, security and development. Her expertise lies in three areas: 1) forced migration and mobility, 2) context-sensitive, participatory and inclusive development practice, and 3) early warning, conflict prevention and civilian peacebuilding; with a cross-cutting focus on gender and civil society. Susanne has worked in various contexts, including Central America (as social worker in urban slums in Mexico-city; facilitating a peace brigade to Nicaragua), the Horn of Africa (co-designing the Conflict Early Warning Mechanism (CEWARN) for the Inter-Governmental organization for Development), and South Asia (research in India and Pakistan) and over a decade in Afghanistan where she co-founded two grassroots organizations (Afghan Civil Society Forum; The Liaison Office) working on conflict-sensitive development practice, access to justice, civil society development and participatory peacebuilding.

Roberto Belloni is Professor of International Relations at the University of Trento (Italy). Previously, he has held teaching and research positions at the University of Denver, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Queens Belfast. His research focuses on democratization and peacebuilding, with particular attention to issues pertaining to civil society in post-conflict areas. He has extensive field experience in the Balkans and particularly in Bosnia-Herzegovina. His publications include the book State Building and International Intervention in Bosnia (Routledge, 2008).

Jasmin Ramović is a Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies in Politics Department at the University of Manchester, UK. He holds a PhD in Humanitarianism and Conflict Response from the University of Manchester, and as a Chevening scholar, he obtained an M.Litt. degree in International Security Studies from the University of St Andrews. His research focuses on local actors in conflict-affected settings, with a specific focus on the economic dimension of their everyday. Dr Ramović is also interested in interdisciplinary approaches to studying international relations, particularly the intersection of anthropology, international political economy and peace and conflict studies. In addition to his academic achievements, he also has extensive experience working with various international organizations, including the United Nations and the European Union missions to Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has recently co-edited the Palgrave Handbook of Disciplinary and Regional Approaches to Peace (2016).

Angelika Rettberg is an associate professor at the Political Science Department at Universidad de los Andes (Bogotá – Colombia), where she leads the Research Program on Armed Conflict and Peacebuilding and the M.A. Program on Peacebuilding. She is also a Global Fellow at the Peace Research Institute of Oslo (PRIO). Her research has focused on the private sector as a political actor and, specifically, on business behavior in contexts of armed conflict and peacebuilding. She has also been involved in research about other aspects of the political economy of armed conflict and peacebuilding, such as the relationship between legal resources, armed conflict, and crime in several Colombian regions as well as the dynamics of transitional justice and reconciliation.

Alexandros Lordos is the Research Director of the Centre for Sustainable Peace and Democratic Development (SeeD). In this capacity, he has led the development of the Social Cohesion and Reconciliation (SCORE) Index in partnership with UNDP. The SCORE has been designed to assess social cohesion challenges in conflict-affected societies, with a view to enhancing the effectiveness of the UN and major development organizations in preventing conflict. Specifically, the SCORE Index, under the leadership of Dr. Lordos, has been implemented so far in Cyprus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Nepal, Ukraine, Liberia and Moldova. Additionally, Dr. Lordos has been advising the European and Arab Region bureaus of UNDP on ways to assess social cohesion in conflict affected countries with a view to enhancing programmatic effectiveness. Dr. Lordos holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology, during which he investigated issues related to youth violence and its prevention. Dr. Lordos is also a Senior Fellow of the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative at Harvard University, where he is collaborating with colleagues to develop novel assessment methods in support of efforts to address political violence.

Ilke Dagli Hustings holds a PhD in Politics and International Studies, focusing on identity, security and peacebuilding nexus from the University of Warwick, where she taught World Politics for three years. She has over ten years of experience in providing consultancy and project development services for SMEs and NGOs, including independent evaluation of their programmes, aiming at a wide range of donors such as the EU, UNDP, UNDEF, WDB and USAID. She co-authored and managed myriad projects in Cyprus such as The Civil Society Dialogue Project, Cyprus Community Media Centre initiative, Access Info Cyprus Project and was closely involved with the award winning ENGAGE Do Your Part for Peace project as a facilitator. As Head of Operations at the Centre for Sustainable Peace and Democratic Development (SeeD), Ilke has been focusing on rolling out SeeD’s Social Cohesion and Reconciliation Index (SCORE) as an evidence-based peacebuilding tool in multiple contexts including Eastern Europe, MENA Region and West Africa.

Subindra Bogati is the Founder / Chief Executive of Nepal Peacebuilding Initiative – an organisation devoted to evidence based policy and action on peacebuilding and humanitarian issues. He has been working for conflict transformation and peace process in Nepal through various national and international organisations for the last several years. Currently, he is one of the principal investigators of the project on “Innovations in Peacebuilding”. This is a two-year research, dialogue, and policy project which represents a partnership between the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, University of Denver, The Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI) in Bergen, Norway, the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) in South Africa and the Nepal Peacebuilding Initiative (NPI). He holds an MA in International Relations from London Metropolitan University (2006) and was awarded the FCO Chevening Fellowship in 2009 at the Centre for Studies in Security and Diplomacy, the University of Birmingham.

David J. Francis (PhD) holds a Research Professorial Chair in African Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Bradford in UK. He has served as Head of Department of Peace Studies and currently the Director of the John & Elnora Ferguson Centre for Africa Studies (JEFCAS). Professor Francis is extensively published with 9 books and more than 30 journal articles, book chapters and policy-relevant reports. He currently serves as Commissioner (Board of Director) of the UK Commonwealth Scholarship Commission as well as UNESCO Chair at the University of Bradford.

Hon. Deqa Yasin Hagi Yusef serves as the Minister of Women and Human Rights Development of the Federal Government of Somalia. She has extensive experience in the promotion of women’s empowerment, human rights, peacebuilding and conflict resolution through government, civil society and international fora. She previously held the position of Deputy Chair of the Federal Indirect Election Implementation Team (FIEIT), where she played a central role in enabling women to take up 25 per cent of seats in both the house of the people and the upper house of the Federal Parliament of Somalia. She also served as a member of the Oversight Board Committee in the Special Financing Facility (SFF) Committee of the Ministry of Finance. Prior to joining the government, she worked as Operations Manager with IIDA Women’s Development Organization, a civil society organisation working to advance peacebuilding, women’s empowerment and human rights in Somalia since 1991. In this capacity, she held positions as Somalia focal point for the Civil Society Platform for Peacebuilding and Statebuilding and representative in the International Dialogue on Peacebuilding and Statebuilding.

Luka Kuol (PhD) is Professor of Practice for Security Studies at Africa Center for Strategic Studies (ACSS), National Defense University, US. He is also Associate Professor at University of Juba, South Sudan and a Global Fellow at Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), Norway. He was Resident Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and Director of Center for Peace, Development and Security Studies at University of Juba. He served as a Minister of Presidency of Southern Sudan and as a National Minister of Cabinet Affairs of Sudan until he resigned in May 2011. He also worked as a Senior Economist for the World Bank in Southern Sudan. He received his PhD from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at University of Sussex, UK and earned a Master of Arts in Economics and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium and BSc from University of Khartoum, Sudan. He has published scholarly articles in a wide array of international journals and contributed with many peer-reviewed chapters in various books. His most recent research products include report by the World Food Program (WFP) titled “At the Root of Exodus: Food security, conflict and international migration” and by United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG) on “The Humanitarian – Development Nexus: What do evaluations say about it?”

Masana Ndinga-Kanga is Senior Researcher at the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. With a multi-disciplinary background in politics, economics, international development and law, Masana has an MSc in Political Economy of Late Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Prior to this, she worked as a Researcher at the Poverty and Inequality Initiative, involved in facilitating and collaborating multi-sector engagements and evidence-based policymaking. As Machel-Mandela Fellow at The Brenthurst Foundation in Johannesburg, Masana partook in a multi-country study on Chinese small businesses in Southern Africa, and provided policy recommendations for South-South policy development. Masana is also an alumnus of the South African Washington International Program and a Chevening Scholar from 2012–13.

Youssef Mahmoud (PhD) is Senior Adviser at the International Peace Institute (IPI) supporting the Africa, Middle East, and peace operations programs and serving as focal point on mediation policies and practices. Before retiring from the United Nations in January 2011, he was the Secretary-General’s Special Representative and Head of the UN Peacekeeping Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT). From 2007 to 2009 he served as Executive Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the UN Integrated Peacebuilding Office in Burundi (BINUB).  Prior to these assignments, he held several other UN senior positions, notably as United Nations Resident Coordinator in Guyana, Director in the UN Department of Political Affairs, and Head of the Office of the Undersecretary-Secretary-General for Political Affairs.   He is currently a Visiting Professor at the African Leadership Centre, King’s College, London.  Dr. Mahmoud has a PhD in Linguistics from Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

Fatima Abo Alasrar is an independent policy analyst from Yemen and an advisor to a number of nonprofit organizations in peace building, conflict, governance and human rights. She is the co-founder of Basement Foundation, a youth led organization in Yemen that works on promoting democratic values and social justice through cultural programs. Between 2002 and 2005 she worked for the Department for International Development (DFID) in Yemen, where she managed the development programs. She also worked in an advisory capacity for the Yemen mission in Washington DC. Abo Alasrar is a former fellow of the Open Society Foundations. Fatima obtained a master’s in public administration from Harvard University, a master’s in international relations from Johns Hopkins University, and a bachelor’s degree in architectural engineering from Sanaa University in Yemen.

Showers Mawowa (PhD) is a Deputy Director at the Southern African Liaison Office (SALO), a regional policy think tank based in South Africa, post-doctoral fellow at the University of Pretoria’s Political Sciences Department and member of the International Experts Panel (IEP) at the Open Government Partnership (OGP), Independent Reporting Mechanism (IRM).  Dr. Mowawa holds a Ph.D in Development Studies (2013) and Masters in Economic History (2007) both from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) and is an alumnus of the African Program on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE). Research interest include extractives governance, political economy and South Africa’s Foreign Policy. He has written and published several articles in peer-reviewed. Showers has taught at Universities in South Africa, researched and campaigned for pro-poor economic policy, participated in local and international advocacy on public debt, aid effectiveness, development co-operation, extractive governance and sustainable development.