Experts on countries of origin by surname

Dr. Frédérick Madore is a Data Curator at the Cluster of Excellence "Africa Multiple", University of Bayreuth (Germany). Through extensive fieldwork in Côte d'Ivoire, Benin, Togo, and Burkina Faso, he has developed deep expertise in understanding how religious groups navigate social and political change. His research includes contributions to the Islam West Africa Collection (IWAC), an open-access database documenting Islam in West Africa.

His book on religious activism at universities in Togo and Benin examines the transformation of campus life through faith-based organizations since the 1970s. Previously, he held positions as Research Fellow at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (Germany) and Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Florida (USA). Dr. Madore has published extensively on Muslim societies and religious movements, including two monographs, an edited volume, and numerous peer-reviewed articles. His research offers new insights into the dynamics of Islam and religious movements in contemporary West Africa.

Rodolfo Maggio is an anthropologist of the Asia-Pacific region currently working at the University of Helsinki. In the past, he taught anthropology at the University of Turin and has worked as a Special Foreign Researcher at Waseda University (2019-20), Tokyo, and as a Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford (2015-18). Maggio's ethnographic expertise centers on the Solomon Islands, where she has conducted immersive fieldwork exploring postcolonial tensions, cultural practices, and social conflicts. Her forthcoming work examines witchcraft accusations by covering visible and invisible dimensions of witch hunts in postcolonial contexts. He addresses land tenure disputes by tracing the history of land policy in Solomon Islands and analyzes internal relocation, highlighting adaptations of "home" amid displacement. Recent pieces on the 2021 Honiara riots and Malaita's renegade status further illuminate risks of retaliation, political subjectivation, and multi-ethnic nation-state dynamics. On child protection, he critiques early intervention programs in Ireland and the UK, linking austerity to perinatal mental health and ethics in ethnographic studies of mothers and services. He tackles decolonial discourse analysis of media, with a focus on Chinese influence in… Read more

Saqeb Mahbub is a UK-educated Barrister, independent judicial reform consultant and part-time Lecturer at North South University based in Bangladesh. Besides legal practice, the expert is regularly consulted by international organisations such as UNDP, UNHCR and USAID. He has conducted research, advisory and consultancy work in Bangladesh on the formal and informal justice systems, freedom of speech and other political rights, anti-corruption, violence against women, minority rights, etc. Saqeb Mahbub has produced expert reports for UK and US courts and tribunals covering the following topics:
(i) Political situation in Bangladesh (including in-depth analysis of all the political parties (BNP, Jamaat, etc), senior and local leaders of opposition parties);
(ii) The criminal justice system; 
(iii) Laws curtailing free speech, state attitude towards opposition;
(iii) Judicial independence;
(iv) Freedom of speech; 
(v) Extra judicial killings;
(vi) Enforced disappearances;
(vii) Police Harassment; 
(viii) Ghost and False cases;
(ix) Persecution of human rights defenders; 
(x) Persecution of LGBTQ community members; 
(xi) Persecution of religious minorities and violent extremism;… Read more

Dr. Basem Mahmud is a Syrian-Spanish sociologist specializing in emotions, forced migration, and post-conflict recovery, with deep expertise in Syria’s social and cultural contexts. Born and raised in Syria, his lived experience enriches his academic and applied research, providing nuanced understanding of the challenges faced by displaced populations. He holds a PhD in Sociology, supported by a DAAD fellowship, and was awarded the prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship for postdoctoral research on refugee labor and structural inequalities in the global economy. His work bridges academic research and practical field applications through partnerships with international organizations, civil society, and research institutes. He focuses on key issues such as transitional justice, civic engagement, community resilience, victim-centered documentation, and social reconstruction in Syria and similar post-conflict settings. Fluent in Arabic, English, and Spanish, Dr. Basem Mahmud combines advanced qualitative and mixed-methods research skills with deep contextual knowledge. He is committed to collaborating on evidence-based projects that foster social transformation and sustainable recovery. Clients can expect strategic research insights, expert project leadership,… Read more

I have studied, worked and lived in Kenya and Tanzania since 2008, with research consulting firms, think tanks and non-profits. This experience in policy research spaces lends itself to my teaching on health policy at LSHTM. I also worked as a research consultant for UZIKWASA, a civil society organisation in Pangani, Tanzania engaging communities in developing grassroots leadership capacity for GVP prevention. With a background in political theory, my main research focus at LSHTM is on community engagement in gender violence prevention and emergent disease outbreaks. I work closely with PAVE, a collaborative group studying the Politics and Anthropology of Violence & Epidemics.

Elise Massicard is a permanent senior research fellow at the French National Center for Scientific Research / Centre d’Etudes Internationales, Paris. From 2010 to 2014, she was a research fellow at the French Institute of Anatolian Studies in Istanbul. She was a visiting fellow at the University of California at Berkeley (2009), at Northwestern University (2019) and Université Libre de Bruxelles (2021). Her research focuses on the political sociology of contemporary Turkey, especially state-society relations, sociology of the state, party politics, social movements, identity politics, and informal politics. She has authored The Alevis in Turkey and Europe: Identity and Managing Territorial Diversity (Routledge, 2012) and more recently, Street-level Governing. Negotiating the State in Urban Turkey (Stanford University Press, 2022). She has co-edited with Nicole Watts Negotiating Political Power in Turkey: Breaking up the Party (Routledge, 2012); and with Marc Aymes and Benjamin Gourisse, Order and Compromise. Government Practices in Turkey from the Late Ottoman Empire to the Early 21st Century (Brill, 2015). She has published extensively in academic journals. She is Editor-in-Chief of the refereed journal Critique Internationale. She is a founding member and a board member of… Read more

Shubh Mathur is an independent researcher with expertise on nationalism, minorities, borderlands, counterinsurgency, sovereignty, human rights, comparative federalism, and environmental ethics. She has conducted fieldwork in India and Kashmir, focusing on state and state-supported violence, and in the United States with asylum seekers who are victims of torture and other human rights abuses by state and non-state actors. Her latest research looks at the history of Indian state violence against religious and ethnic minority groups.

She is the author of several books and  numerous articles, and has co-edited a volume on Kashmir after 2019. Mathur has served as peer reviewer for manuscripts on nationalism and minorities in South Asia and the Middle East for academic publishers.

Melyn McKay (Ph.D.) is a research anthropologist specialising in religious nationalist movements, ethics, conflict and peace building. Amongst her former and current clients: the World Bank, WFP, UNICEF, UNDP, UNOPS, EU, FCDO, USAID, DANIDA, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and numerous International NGOs. Melyn's academic interests focus on Myanmar, the far right, and religious nationalism in Asia. She has also advised and/or overseen research in Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, China, Thailand, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, South Sudan, Burundi, Ghana, and Guatemala. 

Dr. McNeal is an anthropologist with specialization in Caribbean ethnology and Atlantic cultural history and a long-term focus on Trinidad and Tobago. His first book — “Trance and Modernity in the Southern Caribbean: African and Hindu Popular Religions in Trinidad & Tobago” (2011, 2nd ed. 2015) — is a comparative historical ethnography of African and Hindu traditions of trance performance and spirit mediumship in the southern Caribbean, as well as the postcolonial politics of race, religion, diaspora, nationalism and multiculturalism. He has also reconstructed the history and cultural politics of Indo-Trinidadian mortuary ritual, “Death and the Problem of Orthopraxy in Caribbean Hinduism: Reconsidering the Politics and Poetics of Indo-Trinidadian Mortuary Ritual,” which is the subject of my first documentary film project. 

He is currently completing a book on men, sexuality, queer globalization and the politics of citizenship in TT, entitled “Queering the Citizen: Dispatches from Trinidad and Tobago,” in relation to which he has also conducted research in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands and published several papers on queer and trans refugeeism and the political economy of Caribbean asylum-seeking in Europe. He is also working on a third book project on… Read more

Hugh Miles is an Arabic and French speaking journalist who has been living in Cairo for most of the past 20 years researching and writing about all aspects of Arab society and culture. Since 2004 Miles has covered news in North Africa and the Middle East region professionally for diverse international media including the BBC, Al Jazeera, New York Times, Telegraph, Guardian, London Review of Books, Mirror, Mail, Sun and many others. He is a contributor to the Global Organized Crime Index designed to assess levels of organised crime in 193 UN member states and gives regular, ongoing training sessions to the UK FCDO about organised crime in the Middle East as well as, separately, the media environment in the Middle East.

Miles is the founder of Arab Digest, an independent UK ltd. media company specialising in Arab affairs. Arab Digest is an online private members club where business leaders and regional experts discuss the latest developments in the Middle East and North Africa each day. Paying members include the United Nations, the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, The Economist, Oxford University, King’s College London University, Princeton University, BAE, Chevron and many more. 

Dr. Talia Mills received her PhD from King's College London in Geography and Master of Science from the London School of Economics in Gender, Development and Globalization. Her research focuses on the multiple forms of gendered violence that intersect across the displacement process in Mexico and Central America. She publishes on topics related to such violence including the gendered dimensions of impunity in seeking asylum as well as migrant women's resistance to violence in Mexico. In addition, she is an experienced program and project evaluator with areas of expertise in sexual and reproductive health, gender & climate change, gender-based violence and refugee protection. She works and conducts research in Mexico where she has lived since 2016.   

The expert has prepared hundreds of expert opinions on Pakistani Law matters for English Law firms and is an expert on all Political Groups in Pakistan.

The Expert is a former Independent Contractor for the U.S. Embassy in London, specializing in political and media monitoring, screening, and translation. With a background that includes roles in both administration and education, the Expert has also served as a Lecturer at university colleges in Kosovo. His career reflects a broad range of experience in political monitoring and related fields. As a country of origin expert witness, he has authored over 80 expert reports in the past four years and brings 23 years of professional experience to the role.

Shadrack Wanjala Nasong’o, Ph.D. is Professor of International Studies and former department chair at Rhodes College, Memphis, Tennessee, where he has taught since 2005. He teaches courses in comparative politics, international relations, and African politics. He has previously taught at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, University of Nairobi, and Kenyatta University, both in Kenya. Additionally, Prof. Nasong’o has held prestigious summer fellowships at Riara University, Egerton University, and St. Paul’s University, all in Kenya. A political comparativist, Prof. Nasong’o’s research interest lies in the areas of democratization, identity politics, social conflict, governance, and development. He is author, editor, and co-editor of thirteen books, and dozens of peer reviewed book chapters and articles in refereed journals. His latest publication is a monograph titled Kenya and the Politics of a Postcolony (London: Anthem Press, 2024). For his prolific scholarly work, Prof. Nasong’o has been honored with the Rhodes College’s Clarence Day Award for Outstanding Research and Creative Activity, and the Ali Mazrui Award for Research and Scholarly Excellence from the University of Texas at Austin.

I am an international practitioner working across Africa and the Middle East, supporting complex cross-border and regional matters. My work is grounded in practical experience, cultural awareness, and careful judgment in sensitive situations.

Journalist and researcher, with more than twenty years experience reporting on human rights, development issues and related humanitarian affairs. Has prepared a number of expert witness reports for the UK, USA and the Netherlands. Extensive base of complementary knowledge in Francophone Africa. 

Dr. Monticello is a biocultural medical anthropologist with interests in gender and sexuality, physical and mental health, global mental health, and how global and local social, political, and cultural processes “get under the skin” to produce variation health outcomes. His dissertation research was funded by Fulbright and the National Science Foundation. It focused on how young South Korean men’s ability to conform to their cultural models of the ideal male body affected their vulnerability to disordered eating. Intersectional analysis of sexuality and education revealed different levels of vulnerability and different relationships with body ideals. He is currently a postdoctoral research scholar at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. He is continuing my research on South Korean men’s body image alongside new, exciting work in eating disorders prevention and obesity treatment.

Dr. Madalena F. Monteban is a medical anthropologist specializing in maternal and child health, indigenous knowledge systems, food security, and structural inequality. She earned her Ph.D. in Ecological and Environmental Anthropology from the University of Georgia and is currently a Research Associate with Argentina's National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), based at the Universidad Nacional de Jujuy. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Argentina, Peru, and Bolivia. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and Argentina's National Agency for Scientific and Technological Promotion, resulting in over 15 peer-reviewed publications and technical reports on health access disparities, discrimination, food insecurity, and public health systems.

Kawa Morad (MA, PhD) is a lecturer in social anthropology, based in Exeter, with a focus on forced migration and/in the Middle East. He has extensive experience in providing language analysis and country expert reports on internal displacement, gender-based violence, medical/psychiatric care and access, statelessness, LGBTQ+ communities and others in Syria, Iraq, and Kurdistan Region of Iraq.