Brussels Staff Profiles

Sudhanshu Verma started his PhD in International Conflict Analysis in September 2015. Prior to this he earned his MA in Political Strategy & Communications in 2013 at the University of Kent, Brussels School of International Studies (BSIS).

Sudhanshu has over 7 years of experience in public affairs and political communications. For the last 2 years he has been working with a policy research organisation based in Kabul.

Sudhanshu’s PhD research focuses on the Pakistani Army as a security actor in the region and he is supervised by Dr Albena Azmanova.

Raphaël Wolff started reading for his PhD in International Relations at the Brussels School of International Studies in 2015. His research focuses on the legitimation of intelligence and security practices based on the interception, storage and analysis of meta- and personal data when confronted with criticism concerning the violation of rights and freedoms in the digital environment, especially the right to privacy. It concerns the process through which these practices become acceptable as binding policy actions when entangled in controversy.

It builds on previous research done for obtaining his Research Master’s in Social Sciences at the University of Amsterdam, which focused on processes of legitimation and contestation in EU security politics, specifically those concerning the EU Policy Cycle on Serious and Organised Crime.

Before coming to the Brussels School of International Studies, Raphaël has worked as a teaching assistant for courses taught in the Bachelor’s programme in Political Science at the University of Amsterdam (Political Economy, Introduction to Political Science Research and Research Methods and Skills). He also participated in the Social Studies of Institutions Programme organised by the University of Amsterdam, Washington University in St. Louis and the École des Haute Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, spending time at each university to engage in course-work and research seminars together with four other graduate students.

Raphaël has been a teaching assistant for Fundamentals of Dissertation and Research (FDR) and Conflict and Security. He is currently a teaching assistant for FDR.

Susanne Szkola started reading for her PhD in International Relations in September 2015. Her doctoral research focuses on processes of othering, ontological security seeking and securitization in the framework of the construction of security identities in the countries of the South Caucasus vis-à-vis the EU and Russia. She pays close attention to cognitive, affective-emotional and utilitarian resources of motivation in the constitution of these processes. Her research is supervised by Dr. Tom Casier and Prof. Dr. Elena Korosteleva.

Her broader research interests include IR theory, Critical Security and Conflict Studies, Critical Geopolitics, Political and Social Psychology, Foreign Policy Analysis (EU/Eastern Europe and Central Asia/Russia) and the European Union (especially CSDP/ENP/Enlargement). She is also very interested in interdisciplinary research.

Before beginning her PhD studies at the Brussels School of International Studies, Susanne obtained her MA in European Interdisciplinary Studies at the College of Europe, Warsaw, in 2014. The year before, she received her BA in Political Science, Economics, Law and Eastern European Studies at the University of Heidelberg.

Susanne has worked as a consultant for the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (Berlin) within the Central and Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia Department and with Fraunhofer on knowledge transfer and science communications.

She has been a teaching assistant for Fundamentals of Dissertation and Research (FDR) and is currently a teaching assistant for Foreign Policy Analysis.

Matthew Alan Wetherill is a PhD researcher in International Law with a focus on International Criminal Law. His research topic focuses on acts which have not been included within the Rome Statute and how the principle of nullum crimen sine lege impacts their incorporation within Crimes Against Humanity as an ‘other inhumane act’. His research interests include: International Human Rights Law, International Humanitarian Law, International Criminal Law, Judicial Creativity, Fair Trial Rights, Constitutionalism, and Critical Legal Theory. His research supervisors are Professor Yutaka Arai and Dr. Harm Schepel.

He received his BA in Political Science, Japanese and International Relations from the Ohio State University. Following this he received an MA in International Relations from Waseda University in Tokyo and then his LL.M. in Public International Law from the Brussels School of International Studies in 2015. Shortly afterwards he began his PhD in International Law.

Matthew is currently a teaching assistant for Fundamentals of Dissertation and Research (FDR).

Rana started reading for her PhD in International Law at the Brussels School of International Studies in 2015. Her research focuses on the standing of state-owned enterprises and acts attributable to a state under the rules of investor-state dispute settlement. She tries to find out how developments in the global political economy put strain on these rules and require changes in the international legal framework for investor-state dispute settlement.

Rana obtained her LL.B. in Lebanese Law at the Lebanese University and her LL.M. in International Business Law at the Catholic University of Lyon.

She has been a teaching assistant for Fundamentals of Dissertation and Research (FDR).

Hala earned her MA in Peace, Media Peace and Conflict studies from the UN mandated University for Peace in San Jose, Costa Rica and Honors B.A. in Communication studies and Peace Studies from McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada.

Hala previously worked as a youth worker for The Boys and Girls Club of Canada at NGen Youth Centre, where she coordinated, facilitated and designed the program curriculum for the youth led anti- violence initiative, Increase the Peace, that focuses on tackling youth street violence using Urban Arts in the city of Hamilton.

Her research focuses on the Agency of the Libyan and Egyptian Diasporas during the Arab Spring uprisings and her supervisor is Dr. Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels.