Experts on countries of origin by surname

Lauren Wallace is a medical anthropologist and public health expert with nearly a decade of experience in global health. She has specific expertise in women’s health and reproductive health in West and East Africa. She is presently a Senior Researcher at Dodowa Health Research Centre of the Research and Development Division of Ghana Health Service, in Accra, Ghana, and an Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. 

Lesley Jo Weaver, PhD, MPH, is an academic expert in medical anthropology, global health, mental health, race, gender, chronic diseases, food insecurity, and homelessness. Her research focuses, broadly, on the social production of health and illness. In the US, Weaver's federally funded research addresses the ongoing crisis of houselessness in the Pacific Northwest by exploring stress and health among people living with insecure housing. In India, Weaver’s federally funded research explores how the day-to-day management of type 2 diabetes shapes North Indian women’s abilities to participate in social roles considered appropriate for women of their age, class, and caste groups. She also studies how South Indian women explain and understand distress, and what they do when they are so stressed that they need to seek help. In Brazil, Weaver’s work has examined how food insecurity influences physical and mental wellbeing. In addition to this fieldwork, Weaver co-hosts and co-produces the academic podcast Speaking of Race, a longstanding program that explores the history and present-day reverberations of scientific racism around the world.

Bruce Whitehouse is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Lehigh University, where he is also affiliated with the Africana Studies and Global Studies programs. He teaches courses pertaining to culture, globalization, capitalism, humanitarianism and development, and contemporary African societies. His first book, Migrants and Strangers in an African City (Indiana University Press, 2012), examines the multigenerational flow of people from West Africa to the Congo River Basin. His second book, Enduring Polygamy (Rutgers University Press, 2023), studies the resilience of plural marriage in Bamako, Mali. His research has been published in journals including African Studies Review, Global Networks, Hommes et Migrations, and Medical Anthropology Quarterly. He lives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

I am a published doctoral researcher focusing on contemporary Lao culture, politics and society both within Laos and the diaspora. I am particularly interested in ethnic minorities within Laos

PhD Anthropology - Goldsmiths, London (2013-)

MSc Applied Social Research - University of Hull (2011-2013)

Bsc Sci Social Anthropology – University of Manchester (2002-2005)Doctoral researcher with considerable expertise on Laos. 

James Wintrup is a medical anthropologist with expertise in development and global health in Africa, especially Zambia. He has over 8 years of experience in conducting research, using qualitative research methods. He has collaborated and conducted research with policymakers and academics in Africa, the UK and Norway. His research has ethnographically examined the social and political effects of a range of different health interventions in Zambia. He has published articles in Social Science & Medicine, Critical Public Health, Critique of Anthropology, and History and Anthropology.

Currently working as an Assistant Professor and Assistant Director, Centre for Public Interest Law at O.P. Jindal Global University in India. The Expert teaches courses on international law, human rights, and citizenship. Their work addresses issues of asylum, refugee status, nationality/citizenship, and statelessness. Their latest engagement has been in the case of R v Budlakoti (Superior Court of Ontario, Canada) where they provided a legal brief on Indian citizenship, immigration, and human rights law.

The Expert is a Visiting Professor at the Université Catholique de Lille where they teach a Master’s course on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and a guest lecturer at the University of Edinburgh where they teach a module on citizenship law in India. The Expert also serves on the Advisory Group of the organisation Nationality for All to form a regional alliance on nationality and statelessness.

Prior to this, they assisted Afghan refugees in New Delhi with the UNHCR asylum applications and worked with human rights organisations.

The Expert is a Turkish lawyer with 20 years' experience in civil and criminal cases, conducting litigation and providing legal consultancy.

Dr Zagud holds an intensive research experience on international public law, international human rights law, international relations and immigration law. 

Dr Zagud takes instructions on all Arab cases from: Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

He maintains his expertise in all legal matters related to Arab nationals including cases pertaining to asylum, immigration, family and crime. Dr Zagud writes expert reports on all legal matters as well as nationality matters, languages, blood feuds, honour killing, domestic violence, risk of return and Islamic law.

His expertise centres around the people with whom he shares cultural understanding, languages, religious beliefs, and numerous national characteristics.

Cases undertaken

The Expert has experience in providing Country of Origin reports and analyses, he also provides documents authentication reports on various legal proceedings for clients in the UK and internationally. he is mostly instructed in following cases:

Leah Zani, Ph.D. (she, ze, they) is a public anthropologist, author, and poet. Zani earned her Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of California, Irvine, where she studied the effects of air warfare in Laos. She trained as a researcher with the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley, in partnership with the Nobel prize-winning Mines Advisory Group. She has presented her research in Laos to the United States Congress. Recently, she held the Human Rights Seat of the American Anthropological Association, where she advised leadership on global issues of academic freedom. Zani currently serves as a Scholar Rescue Fund Ambassador, assisting displaced scholars as they seek asylum in the United States. She has written for Cultural Anthropology, Kenyon Review, Consequence, and SAPIENS, among others. She is the author of Strike Patterns, winner of the 2023 IPPY Gold Prize for Creative Nonfiction.

Dr Leo Zeilig is a writer and researcher who has published extensively on African politics and society for more than twenty-five years. He is an editor of the Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE) and has written a range of books, reports and articles for a variety of organisations and audiences. 

China expert with a passion for driving change through international project coordination, communication, and journalism. Thrived in roles spanning environmental advocacy, poverty reduction, and news editing, harnessing expertise from esteemed organizations like UNDP, Greenpeace, and Xinhua News Agency. Adept at public engagement, campaign support, and impactful content creation, consistently resonating with diverse global audiences. Known for fostering cross-cultural collaboration and delivering compelling messaging that sparks action and drives meaningful impact.

Reuven (Ruvi) Ziegler is an Associate Professor in International Refugee Law and co-Chair of LGBTQIA+ staff network (University of Reading, UK). 

He is Associate Academic Fellow of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple; Research Associate, Refugee Studies Centre (Oxford); Editor, the Reporter, Society of Legal Scholars (UK & Ireland) and member of its Executive; Senior Research Associate, Refugee Law Initiative (Institute for Advanced Legal Study) and editor of its Working Paper Series; Co-Convenor, ‘Migration and Exclusion Under Constitutions’ Research Group, International Association of Constitutional Law; Visiting Professor (University of Johannesburg, Hebrew University). 

Dr. Tara Rava Zolnikov focuses on aspects of culture in a global health setting. Dr. Zolnikov earned a Ph.D in Developmental Science from North Dakota State University and an M.S. in Environmental Health from Harvard School of Public Health and a second M.S. in Industrial Hygiene from Montana Tech of the University of Montana and is currently studying her third MS degree in Sport Psychology at NorthCentral University and is expected to graduate in 2024. She also earned a B.S. degree in Biological Sciences from Montana Tech of the University of Montana.  She has been a professor of global health and environmental health for the last decade.  She also has chaired and been on committees in over 400 doctoral projects; to date, she has graduated over 150 PsyD’s under her guidance and tutelage. She was also recently accepted as a fellow of ultra elite The Explorer's Club.  Dr. Zolnikov’s research primarily focuses on global health issues in low and middle-income countries, including Kenya, Ghana, India, Colombia, and Brazil. She has worked with the Kenya Red Cross on a variety of public health projects, ranging from infectious diseases (E.g. Ebola and HIV/AIDS) to access to water projects. She is primarily a qualitative researcher and concentrates on providing… Read more

Maggie Zraly is a medical and psychological anthropologist with extensive training in public health. Her research and practice have focused on conflict-affected populations, including survivors of conflict-related sexual violence/genocide-rape, youth heads of household, and children associated with armed forces and armed groups. Dr. Zraly conducted four years of in-depth fieldwork on the ground in Rwanda between 2003 and 2012. In 2016, she conducted short-term research in Afghanistan on human trafficking, and in 2017, she directed a center for mental health in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. She has completed short deployments for child protection and mental health support in emergency response, the longest of which was for 3 weeks in 2016 across Turkey, Greece, Macedonia, and Serbia to assess the protection situation of forcibly displaced Syrian, Afghan, and Iraqi children seeking asylum.