Our Experts

Ann-Kathrin McLean is currently a Doctor of Social Sciences candidate at Royal Roads University (RRU), Victoria, BC, Canada, in the College of Interdisciplinary Studies. Ann-Kathrin holds a MA degree in Tourism Management from RRU. Ann-Kathrin is an associate faculty member in the School of Tourism and Hospitality Management and program associate for the MA in Tourism Management at RRU. With a particular focus on interactive and engaging learning activities and challenges, Ann-Kathrin brings a facilitative approach to her teaching. Her […]

Dario Valoncini is a lawyer, his experience includes providing assistance in the acquisition and disposal of businesses with a focus on cross-border transactions and general corporate and restructuring matters. Working for international law firms, Dario assisted a range of international clients in connection to commercial and real estate investment opportunities. Currently, Dario heads the Foreign Direct Investment department at the Italian Trade Agency within the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs in Canada where he facilitates investments and establishment of Canadian […]

Mehdi Hashemi is currently working towards a PhD in political science with a focus in international relations and comparative politics. He holds a BA from the Azad University of Tehran and an MA in Political Science from the University of Victoria. His work is focused on forced migration as well as construction and implications of refugee crisis. His other research interests include international security, Islamic movements, radicalization, and foreign fighter recruitment. Research Interests: International Relations, Migration, Refugees and refugeehood, International […]

Frauke Ohler is a PhD candidate and a FNRS research fellow at the University of Louvain. Her current research focuses on contemporary global environmental governance in the EU. In 2018, she graduated with an MA in European Studies from the University of Louvain. She also holds a BA in Social Sciences with a concentration in media, politics, and sociology from the University of Dusseldorf. In 2019, she was a research intern at the University of Montreal for the Convention of […]

Fazıla Mat is currently a Ph.D. student at the University of Victoria in the faculty of Political Science under the supervision of Dr. Oliver Schmidtke. Fazıla holds an MA degree in Humanities from the University of Milan and she has worked for over ten years as a journalist and commentator for Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa and other Italian and Swiss media, covering Turkish politics, EU-Turkey relations, issues concerning migration and civil society.  For OBC Transeuropa she also carried out […]

Laurence Claussen is a recent graduate from the University of British Columbia. He completed his MA in Political Science in November 2020, focusing on US politics, migration, ethics in democracy, and public opinion. He had previously completed his BA in History from the University of Aberdeen, where his studies focused on modern political theory, European history, Western ethics, and the politics of conflict and terrorism. Currently, Laurence is an Assistant to the Jean Monnet Projects for EUCAnet. In this role […]

Dr Theofanis Exadaktylos is Senior Lecturer in European Politics at the Department of Politics at the University of Surrey. His current research interests include Europeanization of foreign policy, politics of austerity in Europe, issues of policy implementation and political trust, the current Eurozone crisis from the perspective of the rise in populism, pathways to political engagement in Europe and the rise of populism and the emergence of national stereotypes in the media. Dr. Exadaktylos is the co-editor of Research Methods in […]

Dr. Chien-Huei Wu is currently Associate Research Professor at the Institute of European and American Studies, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan. He received his PhD degree in European University Institute, Florence in 2009. Since then, he worked as Assistant Professor at the National Chung Cheng University, Chiayi, Taiwan for a short period. Before pursuing his doctoral degree in Florence, he worked for the Ministry of Justice in Taiwan as a district attorney. In 2011-12 , he advised the Ministry in drafting […]

Dr. Andrea Wagner is an Assistant Professor at MacEwan University in Edmonton and a consultant for PricewaterhouseCoopers, providing the European Commission with regular updates and analytical reports on Romania’s latest anti-corruption efforts. Dr. Wagner has worked for the United Nations Headquarters, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, and Mannheim Research Institute for the Economics of Aging. Her doctoral dissertation focuses on corruption and rent-seeking in Romania, specifically on how liberalization and marketization of the state-planned economy have engendered new and more pernicious […]

Ramūnas Vilpišauskas is a Professor and was the Director of the Institute of International Relations and Political Science of Vilnius University from 2009 to 2019. He worked as the head of the Economic and Social Policy group and as the advisor to the President of the Republic of Lithuania HE Valdas Adamkus. Ramūnas Vilpišauskas graduated from Vilnius University (Faculty of Economics), Institute of International Relations and Political Science, Lancaster University (UK). He studied or trained at the University of Oslo […]

Ebru Turhan is Assistant Professor of Political Science, Deputy Head of the Department of Political Science and International Relations and Coordinator of the Jean Monnet Module “INSITER-Inside the Turkey-EU-Relations” at the Turkish German University of Istanbul and Visiting Researcher at the IEP Berlin (Institut for Europäische Politik). Her research focuses on EU-Turkey affairs, External differentiated integration with the  EU, EU enlargement politics, EU institutions, German-Turkish relations and the Refugee crisis. Research Interests: EU-Turkey affairs, External differentiated integration with the EU, […]

Alfred Tovias is Professor Emeritus of the Department of International Relations of the Hebrew University. He was the Chairman of the same Department from 2010 through 2012. Before he served for five years as Director of the Leonard Davis Institute for International  Relations at the same University (2005-2010). He holds also the EU-sponsored Jean Monnet Chair on External Economic Relations of the EU. Alfred is also the president of the Israeli Association for the Study of European Integration (IASEI), together […]

Alina Thieme is a research associate at CETEUS (Centre for Turkey and European Studies), University of Cologne. She was holding the position as Executive Manager of CETEUS from 2018 until late 2019. In this time she was active as programme manager for the establishment of the Master European and International Affairs at the Turkish German University in Istanbul, which is funded by the DAAD. Moreover, she was the programme manager for EUCOPAS, a Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence and for […]

Nathan joined the ASU School of Politics and Global Studies in the Fall of 2016 to pursue his PhD in Political Science, studying International Relations and Comparative Politics. He completed his BA (2013) and MA (2016) from the University of Illinois Springfield. His research interests include Identity and Ideology, Religion and Conflict, Radicalization, and the State-Dissident Nexus. More broadly, he is interested in studying the role of religious and political ideologies in social and political movements within the context of […]

Cecilia Emma Sottilotta is an Assistant Professor at the American University of Rome. Before joining the AUR, she was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Department of Political Science of LUISS Guido Carli,  working on the research project  “The choice for Europe since Maastricht: Member States’ preferences for economic and fiscal integration – EMU Choices” funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation  program.  She has been Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Salzburg, Austria (2016), Visiting Professor […]

Oliver Schwarz is researcher and Lecturer for European Integration and Politics at the Institute of Political Science, University Duisburg-Essen (Germany). He is the Coordinator of the Mentoring Programme for the BA Political Science, the Coordinator of the Jean Monnet Module EUMPC and the Co-Chair of the Duisburg Brranch of the Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft (SOG). Olivers research focuses on European Integration, processes of Europeanisation and the EU as a global and regional actor in security and peace. He studied Political Science at the […]