The Expert is a Full Professor of Social and Political Anthropology at the University of Konstanz in Germany.
Barrister and academic, with vast research, publishing and advisory experience across Russian and CIS affairs; fluent in Russian
The Expert is a Professor in the Security Studies Program within Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. She previously served as a senior political scientist with the RAND Corporation, a political officer with the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan in Kabul, and a senior research associate at the United States Institute of Peace. Her most recent book is In Their Own Words: Understanding Lashkar-e-Tayyaba (Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2018/2019). She has authored, co-authored and co-edited several books, including Fighting to the End: The Pakistan Army’s Way of War (Oxford University Press); Pakistan’s Enduring Challenges (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), Policing Insurgencies: Cops as Counterinsurgents (Oxford University Press, 2014); Political Islam and Governance in Bangladesh (Routledge, 2010); Treading on Hallowed Ground: Counterinsurgency Operations in Sacred Spaces (Oxford University Press, 2008); The Madrassah Challenge: Militancy and Religious Education in Pakistan (USIP, 2008), and The Cuisines of the Axis of Evil and Other Irritating States (Globe Pequot, 2008), among others.
She is a member of Women in International Security, International Studies Association, American Political Science Association, the… Read more
The Expert is a Country Expert and academic with extensive fieldwork expeirience and providing expert reports (100+) for more than 40 firms in the UK, US, Netherlands, and Canada with areas of expertise such as but not limited to:
- Authentication documents originating from countries of expertise
- Country reports on the indicated countries of expertise
- Minority groups, religious groups
- Political, social and cultural groups: LGBT
- Organized crime and mafia, state crime
- Extremist and violent groups, including religious groups
- Human rights violations
- Women issues: honor killing
- Human trafficking
- Psychiatry and prison conditions
- Disadvantaged groups e.g. children, minorities, mentally ill, disabled, terminally ill
- Availability of medical services
- State structure, military and security services
- Drug dealing and trafficking
Dr Imam brings more than two decades of experience in mixed methods international social science practice, research, and teaching around the world, focusing on East and West Africa, South Asia, USA, and Central Asia. Her interests involve research, development, and instruction on advanced issues of human rights, international conventions on human, civil, and political rights, and against torture; police service, judicial and quasi-judicial institutions, and persecution; grievance redressal arrangements; gender analysis, gender equality, gender-based violence, forced marriages, and sexual abuse; child abuse, child marriages, and violence against children; climate-related issues; and more. She has written books and scholarly articles about public administration, employing quantitative data and qualitative streams of historical changes in socioeconomic, judicial, political, and administrative institutions.
Her work employs innovative research methodologies, focusing on getting to the crux of socio-cultural and institutional situations to deliver efficient solutions that take into account complex dynamics involving human rights, child rights, gender equality, sustainability, and other such standards, in diverse socio-political contexts.
The Expert is an assistant professor of anthropology at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi. She has been conducting research in Afghanistan since 2009. The Expert’s main research in Afghanistan concerned ethnic Hazara civil society movements and the transmission of cultural trauma. Her earlier research in Afghanistan concerned Pashtun women who were working with Western NGOs. She has a PhD from the University of Connecticut in anthropology, an MA from Georgetown University in Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies with a Certificate in Refugees and Humanitarian Crises, and a BS in Russian Language and Literature from Georgetown University. Since 2016, She has been conducting research on the political identity of Afghan, mainly Hazara, refugees in Greece and Italy. She has also started projects concerning the Hazara genocide of the late 1800s, and sexual violence historically and currently experienced by Hazara women.
Prior to working in academia, The Expert was a high school teacher in South Los Angeles. She also worked for United States exchange programs in Russia, was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, and spent a summer teaching children at an organization in Nablus, West Bank.
I’ve Granted Refugee Status in the UK based on Political Opinion and have done 100+ client case reports in the US and UK. Famous Russian Blogger in London.
Experienced scholar and consultant combining theoretical and practical skills of analysis, intelligence and policy advise with expertise in informal networks, organized crime, corruption, illicit trade, crime-terror nexus, policing and public sector reform
The Expert, Olga S. Levina, PhD, graduated St.Petersburg State University (Russia), faculties of psychology and management. In 1996 – 2008 was working as an organizational consultant for small and medium businesses, contributed to in-country and international programs aimed at socio-economic development in post-soviet Russia. In 1998 - 2015 as a social psychologist, a Co-founder and Development Director of the NGO Stellit she was part of a wide range of health research and prevention initiatives, working in collaboration with stakeholders and scientists from Russian regions, European countries and the U.S. Many of those projects were focused on injection drug users and their sex partners; imprisoned women; socially excluded, abused and neglected children; female sex workers and their sex partners; STI clinic patients; and law enforcement, health, and other professionals and structures across Russia and other post-soviet countries. Olga Levina has experience in development and evaluation of regional and institutional level projects and programs, contributed to over 70 scientific publications in Russia and internationally. In 2013-2014 she received post doctorate training at Yale School of Public Health. In 2015 immigrated to the U.S. and working as an independent consultant/… Read more
The Expert is an expert in autocratization, democracy, and rule-of-law institutions. He is a tenured Associate Professor of Diplomacy & World Affairs at Occidental College. His research and commentary have been published in highly regarded academic journals such as Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Democratization, European Journal of Politics and Gender, Europe-Asia Studies, and Russian Politics, among others. I have also contributed to popular publications such as The Washington Post.
His first book, Global Finance and Local Control: Corruption and Wealth in Contemporary Russia, was published by Cornell University Press in 2021 and received the co-winner of the 2023 Best Book Award given by the International Political Economy section of the International Studies Association. He holds a doctorate in Government from Cornell University and has taught at Wellesley College, the Cornell-in-Washington Program, the Harriman Institute at Columbia University, and the Monterey Institute for International Studies. As a native of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, he studied Physics and Mathematics at Lyceum #61.