Experts on countries of origin by surname

Dr. María Alejandra Espinosa is a Mexican archaeologist. She earned her PhD in archaeology from the Sorbonne University in Paris, France, where she focused her research on native and indigenous cultures from the south of Mexico. She conducted her post-doctoral research on indigenous Mayan cultures and carried out her fieldwork in various states throughout Mexico. 

Dr. Espinosa is a former Professor of Anthropology at the Autonomous Yucatan University, Mexico, and has worked with vulnerable adolescent girls who have been victims of child trafficking within the country of Mexico. Her areas of specialization include domestic violence, education, child trafficking and social inequalities. She is the former co-founder of the school Nek’il Kuxtal, located in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico, which aims to eliminate economic disparity in primary education. Dr. Espinosa currently resides in a Mayan community in the south of Mexico, where she established a non-profit equestrian association to help vulnerable people, through horse connections. She is dedicated to mitigating structural poverty and gender-based violence throughout Mexico.   

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… Read more

Dr. Daanish Faruqi is a Visiting Researcher at the Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.  A scholar of migration and mobility in the Middle East and North Africa, he has leveraged his expertise both in academia and in international development. At Georgetown he researches democracy promotion and conflict resolution through transnational religious humanitarianism. Relying on fieldwork with transnational humanitarian NGOS immediately following the 2023 Syrian/Turkish earthquake, his latest writing deals with the viability of religious humanitarianism in effectively managing refugee crises. He has a forthcoming interview with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on this project and its potential for peace building.

He completed his Ph.D. from Duke University, where he wrote his dissertation on the role of Syrian Sufi religious scholars in joining the 2011 uprising against Bashar al-Assad. Through several years of ethnographic and historical fieldwork in Morocco, Turkey, and Jordan, conducting hundreds of Arabic-language interviews, his work revealed the role of 19th century migration from North Africa to Damascus in informing contemporary… Read more

The Expert has worked as an expert witness on the Middle East, producing Country Expert Reports (CER) for the past 20 years.

The Expert has produced on average between 200-300 reports each year on the MENA region for British, European, and US courts.

The Expert’s areas of expertise include tribal issues, gender-based violence, security issues, extremist groups and militias, human rights law and violations, the situation for minorities, trafficking, and the availability of medical services. In addition to CERs,

The Expert also authenticates documents from the region, and conducts nationality and ethnicity reports in order to assess the likely origin of an individual within MENA.

The Expert is able to conduct nationality assessments in Arabic, Farsi, Sorani, and Bahdini/Kurmanji.

The Expert is a public health professional with 25 years of experience in global health programming and research on health and human rights, stigma, health and social equity. Much of her work has been in Africa (West and Southern Africa) centering on research and programs pertaining to access to sexual and reproductive health, HIV, and equitable health sytems.

Koyana Flotte is an anthropologist, culture bearer, community leader, and independent consultant with a decade of experience conducting research in Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. Dr. Flotte is more well known for her support of humanitarian aid causes for in-transit immigrants who experience intersectional violence such as LGBTQ+, women, and children seeking asylum in the United States. She has also collaborated with organizations like RAICES, Santa Fe Dreamers Project, Transgender Law Center, Mariposas Sin Fronteras, etc.

 Dr. Flotte is Native and grew up in West Texas, on the Texas-Mexico border.

The Expert is a cultural anthropologist with 30 years of experience working in academic, policy and program contexts with Latino immigrant and refugee populations in the U.S. and Canada. She has written extensively about Central American migration and indigenous communities and is the author of the book In Search of Providence: Transnational Mayan Identities (Vanderbilt University Press, 2008; updated edition, 2020), as well as numerous peer-reviewed articles and major reports.  Dr. Foxen served for 14 years as Deputy Director of Research at UnidosUS (formerly the National Council of La Raza), the largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization in the U.S., where she oversaw data-driven policy-oriented research, directed and published community-based research on the integration and well-being of Latino youth and families, and communicated findings to external audiences such as policy makers, media outlets, practitioners and universities. Dr. Foxen has taught at Vanderbilt University and the University of Toronto, has been a visiting fellow at Yale University and American University, and is a frequent guest lecturer. She has served on boards and advisory bodies including the Population Reference Bureau, Child Trends Hispanic Institute Advisory Council, the Guatemala… Read more

The Expert has been studying Afghanistan since 2001 as a UK government political and military analyst and also at the world-acclaimed international think-tank, SIPRI, in Stockholm. He has produced more than 900 Afghanistan Expert Reports for over 150 British and American law firms. He is very responsive to short notice deadlines, has a quick turnaround time and he is very happy to discuss early initial thoughts to assist you and your client at no obligation. He has excellent impartial research, analysis and communication skills and was awarded an MBE for his Afghanistan work in 2005.

Performance feedback – judges:

“I have carefully considered the report of Mr Tim Foxley MBE…I accept that Mr Foxley is an expert. I give weight to his CV. The report complies with the practice direction. He demonstrates a clear understanding of his duties as an expert and his duty to the court…The respondent does not challenge his expertise…The cogent observations of Mr Foxley carry weight. “ 

(First Tier Tribunal Judge, January 2024)

“Mr Tim Foxley is a well established expert witness who has eighteen years’ experience of studying Afghanistan…His report is objectively written and thoroughly sourced.  It is an impressive piece of evidence.  I am not… Read more

China expert with 30+ years academic, human rights and human trafficking experience. 20+ years experience writing China country expert witness reports for UK asylum cases on wide range of substantive grounds. 5+ years experience as UK NRM first responder.

Dr. Shaul Gabbay completed a BA at Bar Ilan University and an MA at Tel-Aviv University. In 1991 he received a Presidential Fellowship from the U.S. to continue his studies. In 1995 he completed the PhD program at Columbia University in New York and received an invitation from the University of Chicago for a Post Doctoral program. In 1998 Dr. Gabbay returned to Israel to join the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology. Professor Gabbay joined the University of Denver as the Director of the Institute for the Study of Israel in the Middle East at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies in 2001- 2010.  He continued his research at DU as a Senior Scholar until 2015 when he was appointed Director of the Global Research Institute.

His areas of expertise include Middle East cultures and societal norms,   Middle East conflicts, and human rights issues existing in Muslim societies.  He is regularly cited and acts as a commentator in national and international media such as the Associated Press, CBS, NBC, FOX and MSNBC.

The expert is a seasoned International Analyst and Political Scientist, specializing in humanitarian disarmament, arms control, and transnational organized crime, 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.

Academic with expertise on many countries in the Middle East

The expert is lecturer in Kurdish and Gender Studies at the University of Exeter and has extensive experience in providing country expert reports, nationality assessment, and language analysis.

Independent researcher. Country expert reports, nationality assessment, language analysis, Gender-based violence, Ethnic and religious minorities in the Middle East, and Document authentication.

The Expert is a practicing medical anthropologist and public health professional, with a focus on mental health and health equity research. She has published research on mental health, stigma, syndemics, chronic illness, obesity, food insecurity, environmental health, and community-based participatory research.

David Glovsky is an Assistant Professor of African History at Boston University (BU). He is a historian of 19th and 20th century West Africa, with a focus on Senegal, Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, and Guinea. His research and teaching interests include histories of mobility and migration, borderlands, spatial history, Islam, citizenship, gender, and histories of popular culture/sport.

Prof. Glovsky has extensive research experience in greater Senegambia, focused on cross-border mobility and belonging among primarily rural communities. His work is embedded in understanding how people in border regions conceive of their spaces, rather than state views from the outside. He holds a B.A. in History and Human Geography from Dartmouth College and a Ph.D. in African History from Michigan State University. Prior his time at BU, he taught in the Department of Africana Studies at the University at Albany, State University of New York.

The Expert is Professor Emeritus of the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University. He is the author or co-author of four ethnographies and numerous articles based on his research in Bolivia and the United States. His areas of interest include the anthropology of politics and law, security, violence, immigration, and urban life. The Expert retired from academia in 2018 to pursue a career as a novelist, but he remains involved in the study of Latin American political and social life.

Journalist and Broadcaster, with direct experience of 'post-war' Iraq

The Expert/Consultant is a specialist for Nepal and Bhutan – the countries in the Himalayan belt and has provided expert reports to the UK and U.S. courts, including NGOs and businesses around the world. The Expert has appeared in court to provide testimony. The expert was born and raised in Nepal - and provides linguistic expertise in the Nepali language too. He was recently involved in a charity project in Nepal in 2021 and 2022, during this period, he spent a substantial amount of time in Nepal. He regularly travels to Nepal for study and social enterprise projects – and closely collaborates with various agencies in Nepal and Bhutan.

The Expert is currently continuing his doctoral research in politics at Birkbeck College, the University of London. He was previously enrolled on a PhD programme at the Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) where he began his research on the dynamics of the relationship of Nepal’s internal political actors with India and China. The Expert is a Member of the Britain Nepal Academic Council (BNAC), Political Studies Association (PSA) and Chatham House.