Meet the team
Ruba Salih, a social anthropologist and a Reader in Gender Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London. Her research interests and writing cover transnational migration and gender across Europe and the MENA region, the Palestine question and Palestinian refugees.
She is a trustee of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences and a founder of its sub-committee for academic freedom in the Arab region.
She is a trustee of the Arab Council for the Social Sciences and a founder of its sub-committee for academic freedom in the Arab region.
Her forthcoming publications include a book titled: Palestinian Refugees. The politics of exile and the politics of return (with Sophie Richter-Devroe) (Cambridge University Press), in 2017 , and a special issue on “Palestine and Self-determination beyond National Frames: Emerging Politics, Cultures, and Claims” for the journal South Atlantic Quarterly, which will be out in 2018.
Marc Schade-Poulsen is since 1998 executive director of EuroMed Rights: the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network, www.euromedrights.org . Before joining the Network he worked as coordinator, at the Danish Institute for Human Rights, researcher at the Danish Centre for Development Research, researcher at the University of Copenhagen and lecturer at the Copenhagen Business School.
Marc Schade-Poulsen holds an MA and Ph.D in Anthropology. He has lectured, researched and published extensively on issues related to human rights, migration, Islamism, popular culture and youth in the Middle East and North Africa as well as on the EU Mediterranean relations.
Ali Vaez is Crisis Group’s Senior Iran analyst. Consulting closely with all sides in the nuclear negotiations for the past few years, he led Crisis Group’s efforts in helping to bridge the gaps between Iran and the P5+1 and is renowned as one of the foremost experts on Iran’s nuclear and missile
programs. Before joining Crisis Group, he headed the Iran project at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, DC. Trained as a scientist, Vaez has more than a decade of experience in journalism. He has written
widely on Iranian affairs and is a regular contributor to mainstream media outlets. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University from 2008 to 2010 and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Geneva and a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
programs. Before joining Crisis Group, he headed the Iran project at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, DC. Trained as a scientist, Vaez has more than a decade of experience in journalism. He has written
widely on Iranian affairs and is a regular contributor to mainstream media outlets. He was a post-doctoral fellow at Harvard University from 2008 to 2010 and holds a Ph.D. from the University of Geneva and a master’s degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.
Karima Khalil is a public health physician with degrees from Smith College, Ain Shams medical school and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Karima’s research and scientific publications focus on the exploration of factors contributing to maternal deaths in childbirth, among other topics related to women’s health. A firm believer in the contribution of art for change, Karima is a founding board member of the Egyptian arts endowment initiative Madad and the Townhouse Gallery.
She is also a trustee of the Friends of Ahmed Baha el Din Foundation, Studio Emadeddine and the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights.”
Issandr El Amrani is the North Africa Project Director for the International Crisis Group, overseeing the conflict prevention and resolution NGO’s work from Morocco to Egypt. Prior to joining Crisis Group, he was a writer and consultant on Middle Eastern affairs based in Cairo. His reporting and commentary on the region has appeared in The Economist, London Review of Books, Financial Times, The National, The Guardian, Time and other publications. He formerly was the editor of the Cairo Times, a co-founder of Cairo magazine, and publishes one of the longest-running and most-read blogs on Arab politics culture, www.arabist.net. He currently lives in Rabat.
Abdullah is a graduate in business studies and international relations. He holds a Master in Business Administration (MBA), a Master in International Relations (MA) and a Doctorate in International Political Economy (PhD) from the University of Cambridge. Abdullah has a general interest in international relations and the international political economy, particularly in the subject area of regionalism and globalization. Specifically, his academic interest focuses on the in the Gulf States’ economic, political, security and social development and their external relations. He has participated in numerous international conferences, workshops and seminars and has several publications to his credit. He is a member of a number of academic and research institutions as well as business organizations, professional bodies and committees. Abdullah has held several positions in business and academia and his last post was the Director of the Gulf Research Centre -Cambridge at the University of Cambridge.
Raffaella A. Del Sarto is Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS), SAIS Europe at Bologna, Johns Hopkins University. She is also a Part-time Professor at the European University Institute, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, where she directs the research project on “BORDERLANDS: Boundaries, Governance, and Power in the European Union’s Relations with North Africa and the Middle East,” funded by the European Research Council. She was previously a Research Fellow at the Middle East Centre of St Antony’s College, University of Oxford (2007-2011).
She is the author of Contested State Identities and Regional Security in the Euro-Mediterranean Area (Palgrave, 2006), the co-editor of The Convergence of Civilizations: Constructing a Mediterranean Region (with E. Adler, B. Crawford and F. Bicch; Toronto University Press, 2006), and the editor of Fragmented Borders, Interdependence, and External Relations: The Israel-Palestine-European Union Triangle (Palgrave, 2015). Her book Israel Under Siege: The Politics of Insecurity and the Rise of the Israeli Neo-Revisionist Right is forthcoming with Georgetown University Press.
She is the author of Contested State Identities and Regional Security in the Euro-Mediterranean Area (Palgrave, 2006), the co-editor of The Convergence of Civilizations: Constructing a Mediterranean Region (with E. Adler, B. Crawford and F. Bicch; Toronto University Press, 2006), and the editor of Fragmented Borders, Interdependence, and External Relations: The Israel-Palestine-European Union Triangle (Palgrave, 2015). Her book Israel Under Siege: The Politics of Insecurity and the Rise of the Israeli Neo-Revisionist Right is forthcoming with Georgetown University Press.