Experts on countries of origin by country

Danielle Annoni is an associate professor of International Law and Human Rights at the Federal University of Parana (UFPR-Brazil), where she coordinates the Human Rights Observatory and Legal Practice in Human Rights and Migration. She has been conducting human rights research for 18 years. She is an educator, a mother and an active human rights defender, with a focus on migration, gender and the Latin American human rights protection system. Because of her work developed with vulnerable groups regarding the education of labor rights, the empowering of women through handicraft and gastronomy fairs, advocacy in the mediation of cultural conflicts, and access to justice and education, she has received several awards.

PhD in Social Science, sociologist and human rights expert specialising in country conditions analysis related to political violence, forced displacement, and asylum claims in Latin America. 

Dr. Christian is a psychoanalytical anthropologist with a doctorate in violent ethnic & cultural conflict. He has spent the past 36-years researching and practicing in Eurasia, Southwest Asia, Middle East, Central and South America, West Africa, North Africa and the Horn of Africa. His field work was in support of military, diplomatic, and humanitarian interventions in violent intra-state conflicts. He is a member of the American Anthropological Association’s Society for Psychological Anthropology and the American Psychological Association’s Society for the Psychological Study of Culture, Ethnicity, Race, Conflict, & Violence.

Dr. Christian’s expertise is derived through a combination of academic training and extensive field work and is best described as the ‘application of psychoanalytical sociological analysis using anthropological methodology to curate the science to a specific subject community’s emic or lived/living experiences both mentally and emotionally.’ This level of analytical research allows him to illuminate the underlying psychosocial-emotional motivations of individual and collective behaviour post-mortem to, and predictive of, violent conflict.

The expert is a seasoned International Analyst and Political Scientist, specializing in humanitarian disarmament, arms control, and criminal structures operating in the Latin America and Caribbean region, with extensive experience in NGOs in Argentina and Colombia. His research and academic endeavors are dedicated to addressing pressing issues in defense, security, and humanitarian efforts in the region.

I analyze emerging and developing markets focusing on how economic structures and institutions shape real outcomes. My work delivers practical insights on risk, growth, and structural constraints based on how these politics and economies actually function on the ground.

Dr. Harding earned a Ph.D. in International Studies from the University of Miami with specializations in Latin American Politics, Foreign Policy Analysis, and International Relations. His major professor and dissertation chair was the late Dr. Enrique Baloyra, a renowned Cuba-born scholar. Dr. Harding has held full-time academic appointments in Virginia, Alabama, and most recently Georgia, where he is the Professor of Political Science at Valdosta State University. He is the author of three books and several book chapters as well as over a dozen journal articles. Dr. Harding has been an invited presenter on Latin American politics in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. He has been a federally recognized asylum expert since 2018, working for asylum attorneys throughout the United States as well as the UK and and the Netherlands.

Dr. Pacifico has been an international lawyer since 1993, with expertise in International Human Rights Law, particularly human rights of refugees and forced migrants, since 1997. She has been an associate professor for Law and International Relations at Maceio, Brasilia, and Joao Pessoa universities since 1997.  She has taught International Law/Relations, Human Rights, and Refugee and Migration Issues for more than two decades. Dr. Pacifico has also presented seminars, given lectures and interviews, published papers, supervised theses and dissertations on these issues, and my own research principally focuses on human rights of legal minorities and human rights protections of refugees and legal minorities in Brazil and abroad.

Currently, Dr. Pacifico is a full-time associate professor in International Relations at Paraiba State University and a full-time collaborator/researcher at the Post-Graduate Program in Comparative Studies on the Americas, at University of Brasilia, both in Brazil, in addition to being a Senior Research Associate at the Refugee Law Initiative at University of London, UK. She was a post-doctoral fellow at the York University Centre for Refugee Studies, Canada (2009 to 2010), visiting research fellow at the Refugee Studies… Read more

Alexandra Panzarelli earned her Ph.D. in Political Science from The New School for Social Research in 2026. She has 15 years of professional and academic experience in media, politics, and human rights. She is skilled in international affairs, media monitoring, political analysis and consultation, and democracy and governance. She has extensive knowledge of key political actors, civil society, and social impact program investors in the Latin American region.

 Dr. Panzarelli is the author of several articles on human rights, elections, populism, and social movements. As a professor of political science, she possesses extensive expertise in Venezuelan political affairs, both as a local and as an expert in the field. With over 15 years of experience working in human rights and the political landscape of the country, she has developed a deep understanding of its complexities. Additionally, her expertise in Guyana, Bolivia and Ecuador stems from her role as a Program Manager for the International Republican Institute and Political advisor for Canada respectively, where she collaborated with scholars, NGOs, and human rights activists. This experience has provided her with valuable insights into human rights, legal issues, and their political… Read more

Alexandra J. Reichert is a medical anthropologist and human rights researcher specializing in Indigenous women’s health, environmental justice, and state policy in the Ecuadorian Amazon. She is currently completing her Ph.D. at Vanderbilt University, where her dissertation, Birth, Violence, and Resistance in the Ecuadorian Amazon, explores Indigenous Kichwa women’s experiences of obstetric violence and their strategies of resilience and legal advocacy. A former Fulbright and Boren Fellow, she has over eight years of ethnographic and policy research experience with Indigenous women’s organizations, midwives, and health authorities in Ecuador. She previously served as Deputy Director of the Aspen Institute Health Strategy Group in Washington, D.C., co-authoring national policy reports on maternal mortality and health equity. Her research and publications bridge anthropology, law, and policy. Her areas of specialization include Indigenous rights, racial discrimination, gender-based and obstetric violence, sexual assault, state persecution, intercultural health systems, environmental and reproductive justice, and human rights documentation.

My work has equipped me to evaluate country conditions through a disciplined framework that considers security, governance, community dynamics, institutional behavior, and vulnerability in combination, rather than in isolation. My expertise is especially relevant where a case turns on whether an individual could reasonably obtain protection, safely relocate, or avoid persecution, serious harm, reprisals, extortion, gang coercion, political targeting, gender-based violence, or reprisals linked to family or community structures. I assess, where relevant, whether state protection is available, effective, and accessible in practice; whether criminal or political actors can act with impunity or informal protection; whether relocation within the country would be realistic and durable; how local factors affect the risk profile of the individual concerned; and whether socio-economic, ethnic, political, or family-based vulnerabilities materially increase exposure to harm.