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.

Simone Elyse Carter is a public health and humanitarian expert with over 15 years of experience in outbreak analytics, research coordination, and strategic leadership. She currently serves as the Lead for Integrated Outbreak Analytics (IOA) at UNICEF, providing technical guidance and capacity strengthening for emergency response efforts worldwide.

Throughout her career, Simone has played a key role in developing data-driven solutions for complex health crises, leading interdisciplinary teams, and fostering global partnerships. Her work has included chairing the IOA working group under the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) and overseeing systematic research dissemination to improve outbreak response strategies.

Previously, Simone managed the Integrated Analytics Cell (CAI) in the Democratic Republic of Congo, where she contributed to the development of evidence-based response mechanisms during public health emergencies. Her expertise spans epidemiology, humanitarian coordination, and policy development, making her a vital resource in advancing data-informed decision-making in crisis contexts.

Michelle Johnson is Associate Dean of Faculty for the Social Sciences and Professor of Anthropology at Bucknell University. A cultural anthropologist specializing in religion and ritual in Africa and the contemporary African diaspora (i.e., Africans in Europe and the United States), she has conducted extensive fieldwork in Guinea-Bissau and with Guinean immigrants in Portugal. She has held grants from the Social Science Research Council, the U.S. Department of Education (Fulbright-Hays), and the Institute for Citizens & Scholars (formerly the Woodrow Wilson Foundation). Her articles have appeared in the Journal of Religion in Africa, African Studies Review, Anthropology Quarterly, and Food and Foodways. She is author of Re-making Islam in African Portugal: Lisbon - Mecca - Bissau (Indiana University Press, 2020) and co-author (with Edmund "Ned" Searles) of Reciprocity Rules: Friendship and Compensation in Fieldwork Encounters (Lexington Books, 2021). She also provides expert testimony on asylum cases pertaining to West Africa and the contemporary African diaspora on topics such as genital cutting, forced marriage, and religious persecution and freedom. She teaches courses on cultural anthropology, the anthropology of religion, African Studies, and the life course and was… Read more

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

Christian Reed is a Medical Anthropologist and Epidemiologist who specializes in sub-Saharan and East Africa. He has extensive research experience in Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia and speaks Portuguese, Swahili, Lunda-Ndembu, and Bemba. His single-authored book "Landscapes of Activism" pertains to pharmaceutical treatment access and HIV/AIDS activism with the matrilineal and Muslim tribes of northern Mozambique. He specializes in the social ramifications of infectious and communicable disease and rural and urban global health. Christian also studies religion with interests in traditional religion and healing, Pentecostalism, Catholicism, Santaria, Voodoo, and spirit possession.