Maja Andjelkovic

Posted on November 30, 2012 by acgr

Maja Andjelkovic read for an LLM in International Law with International Relations (Disctinction) at BSIS. She is currently reading for a DPhil at the University of Oxford where her research interests involve the potential of mobile telephony to support innovation in emerging markets.

She joined the World Bank Group in March of 2007 and is currently a researcher and project officer with infoDev. infoDev is a technology and innovation-led development finance program in the Financial and Private Sector Development (FPD) Vice Presidency of The World Bank and IFC. It is coordinated and served by an expert Secretariat that acts as a neutral convener of dialogue and coordinator of joint action among bilateral and multilateral donors.

Previously, she worked in the private sector on developing Internet technology used to track public opinion, and with the International Institute for Sustainable Development, where she helped advance sustainability issues at the World Summit on the Information Society and the Internet Governance Forum.

We asked her about her time at BSIS:

“I appreciated the international community, excellent professors, very good faculty-to-student ratio, and encouragement of students pursuing non-traditional research topics. The research skills I acquired at BSIS were critical to my ability to pursue a doctorate at Oxford.”

“I would certainly recommend BSIS as a great place to develop independent research skills, to enjoy small, seminar-style classes and to work with attentive professors with very current knowledge of their fields.”

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Mariela Guajardo

Posted on November 30, 2012 by acgr

Mariela Guajardo graduated, with a distinction, in 2008 from the M.A. programme in Migration Studies. She is currently an advisor to the Commissioner of the Mexican National Migration Institute (INM, for its acronym in Spanish). Prior to this position, Mariela worked on counter-trafficking issues at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Geneva and Mexico City. While at BSIS, she founded the Migration Forum.

What do you think were the key attributes of BSIS when you were here?
One of the key attributes of BSIS is the size of the student body. Students feel part of the community as opposed to being just a number. In addition, professors are extremely committed, not only to their student’s academic success but to their professional development.

Do you think that your studies at BSIS helped you secure your current post?
My degree from BSIS has definitely opened a lot of doors professionally. It was while writing my dissertation, and with the support of my BSIS network, that I was offered an internship at IOM headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. I truly believe that the knowledge I gained while at BSIS has been a determining factor in my professional development.

Do you think that BSIS is a good place to study international studies and if so why?
BSIS is an ideal place to study international affairs. The location of the school allows for the classroom to expand into the EU, NATO and other Brussels-based organizations. Throughout the school year students have many opportunities to visit these organizations, meet with many of their representatives and apply for internships and jobs.

Have you been able to put what you learned at BSIS to use and if so when? 
While many aspects of migration management can be quite practical in nature, I feel that I have been able to enrich my work by integrating the theoretical perspective gained during the M.A. In fact, some of the classes that I took in Brussels have been so closely related to my job that I often consult my BSIS readings and notes at work!

Would you recommend BSIS to potential students and if so what would you tell them?
I would wholeheartedly recommend BSIS to prospective students. Not only did the school give me the academic credentials necessary for a career in migration, but my studies also gave me the opportunity to establish long lasting relationships with truly unique people from all over the world.

As I usually tell people who ask me about the school, BSIS has a way of opening up a world of possibilities.

 

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Milo Jones

Posted on November 30, 2012 by acgr

Dr Milo Jones holds an MA in International Relations (with Distinction) and a PhD in International Relations from the University of Kent (Brussels School of International Studies).  He also holds an MBA from London Business School and a BA in Art History from Northwestern University.

He is currently a Visiting Professor at IE business school in Madrid where he teaches “Geopolitics” and “Investing in Emerging Markets” for Masters in Advanced Finance students, and “How to Think Like an Intelligence Analyst” and “Business, Government and Society” (a capstone advanced strategy module), for International MBA students.

In early 2013, Stanford University Press will be publishing ‘Constructing Cassandra: Reframing Intelligence Failure at the CIA, 1947-2001’. This book is based on his PhD dissertation, and is focused on four strategic surprises: the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fall of the Shah of Iran, the collapse of the USSR, and the terrorist attacks of 9/11.

We asked him about his time at BSIS:

“BSIS provided several unique features which made it a fantastic place to do my PhD. First was location: the international mix of people and institutions in Brussels is unmatched anywhere else in Europe. It’s also a great base from which to see other places or to learn a new language.”

“BSIS itself contrasted sharply with other institutions that I considered by insisting on a firm theoretical foundation in the work of both Masters and PhD students. Instead of theory being something to “be got through” before one could “begin work”, clarity of foundational ideas was required at every stage.”

“By avoiding the “vocational school” approach, and by stressing the theoretical and conceptual side of Social Science, BSIS gave me the tools to think about International Relations from many points of view for many years into the future.”

In 2011, Milo was chosen by the US ODNI’s Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity as a participant in their “Forecasting World Events” Project. His research interests are non-predictive strategy, geopolitics, and the “The Great Divergence” (i.e. the economic and technological take-off of Europe that began in the early 19th Century).

Milo is founder of Inveniam Strategy, and Co-Founder and a Managing Director at Insight Advisory Partners. Inveniam Strategy specializes in non-market strategy, geopolitics, and the application of models drawn from the Intelligence Community to an array of business and financial issues; clients include Wal-Mart and Accenture. Insight Advisory Partners is a merchant bank and strategic advisory in Chicago focused on the food sector.

His column appears with a colleague on Forbes.com at http://blogs.forbes.com/silberzahnjones/ and maintains a blog at and http://silberzahnjones.com/

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Karel Kovanda

Posted on November 29, 2012 by acgr

Ambassador Karel Kovanda served as Deputy Director General of External Relations in the European Commission from April 2005 until the end of 2010. His areas of responsibility included the European common foreign and security policy; multilateral relations and human rights; relations with developed countries outside the EU, such as those of North America, East Asia, Australia et al.  He simultaneously served as the European Commission’s Political Director, in bilateral as well as G8 contexts.

Prior to joining the European Commission, he was a senior diplomat in the Czech Foreign Service, from 1991 to 2005. He served as ambassador to NATO and to the UN, including leading his country’s delegation as a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council (1994-95).

He holds an undergraduate degree from the Prague School of Agriculture (1969), a PhD in political science from MIT (1975) and an MBA from Pepperdine U., California (1985). He is fluent in Czech, English, Slovak, Spanish and French, and has conversational Russian and German.

 

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Lucy Williams

Posted on November 29, 2012 by acgr

Lucy works as a Lecturer at MASC and teaches on the European MA in Migration and Social Care and teaches and convenes the Certificate in Social Care Practice for Refugees and Asylum Seekers (Young People). Her recent research includes a study of the social networks of refugees in the UK in which she studied the relationship between the transnational networks of refugees and British communities, institutions, services and local contacts. Much of her research draws on her contacts within the voluntary sector and within refugee communities. She is currently working on a research project interviewing interpreters in asylum/refugee services and has a research interest in the causes and consequences of domestic violence against migrants and in migrant communities. Lucy is interested in narrative and participative approaches to research.

Before coming to MASC, Lucy has worked in community health services, in the voluntary sector in the UK and in Thailand and as an archaeologist.

Research interests

I am interested in researching aspects of migration and mobility. My work seeks to foreground migrant perspectives of migration and to challenge the narratives about migration presented by policy makers and immigration regimes. It is concerned with how gender and gendered norms effect migration choices and motivations and with how migrants negotiate agency within policy and regulatory structures.

I am particularly interested in immigration detention and in how governments seek to deter and control migration through mechanisms that exclude and suppress the agency and voice of migrants.

Current Research Projects

Research on the experiences of former immigration detainees released into the community – with Dr Axel Klein

Previous Research

Analysis of secondary material on cross-border marriage migration
A qulaitiative study with interpreters working in services for refugees and asylum seekers
A study of the social networks of refugees in the UK

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Paul Adamson

Posted on November 28, 2012 by acgr

Paul Adamson is the editor-in-chief and founding publisher of E!Sharp, an on-line magazine on Europe and Europe’s place in the world. He is also Senior European Policy Advisor at Covington and Burling.

He is a trustee of the Citizenship Foundation, a patron of the University Association of Contemporary European Studies (UACES) and a board member of the Euclid network (the European organisation for the third sector and social entrepreneurs).

He is a member of Rand Europe’s Council of Advisors and on the advisory boards of the Washington European Society and the polling/think tank YouGov-Cambridge. He is also an academician of the UK Academy of Social Sciences.

Earlier in his career he founded the EU consulting firm, Adamson Associates and the “think-do tank”, The Centre.

In the Queen’s New Year’s Honours 2012 he was awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) “for services to promoting understanding of the European Union”.

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Maite van Regemorter

Posted on November 28, 2012 by acgr

Maïté Van Regemorter started her studies at the BSIS in April 2012 as a research student on the PhD program in International Law. Previously, she earned her Master in Law (2008) and Master in International Relations (2008) degrees from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (Belgium) and her LLM in International Law and International Relations degree (2011) from the BSIS.

After and during her studies, she did internships at the Human Rights and Social Justice Research Institute of the London Metropolitan University, at the International Justice division of Human Rights Watch, at the Belgian delegation to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva and at the International Humanitarian Law section of the Belgian Red Cross.
She was admitted to the Brussels Bar in 2010 and is now a lawyer in a law office specialised in criminal law, migration law and international human rights law.

PUBLICATIONS

D. Daie, K. Sbai, C. Vaillant & M. Van Regemorter (dir. E. Derriks), Droit des étrangers. Chronique de jurisprudence., Bruxelles, Larcier, December 2012 M. Van Regemorter, « Lumumba’s death, a war crime in an international armed conflict ? », (2011) 11-12, Journal of International Crimes and History

RESEARCH

The working title of Maïté’s research project is “The right to liberty and the International Criminal Court”. It endeavors to answer the question whether the right to liberty for an accused before the ICC is a void right due to the lack of obligation on a state to guarantee his/her provisional release.

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Robert Zaman

Posted on November 28, 2012 by acgr

Robert Zaman began reading toward his PhD in International Conflict Analysis at the Brussels School of International Studies in 2012. Previously, he earned his BA of Economics from the University of Maryland, an MA in Strategic Intelligence from the American Military University and an MA in International Relations from the University of Kent. Robert also completed coursework in Military History and Naval Science at the George Washington University and attended the China Foreign Affairs University as an exchange student to its school of Diplomacy and International Relations.

His doctoral research is an Examination of the Power Structures of Militant Occupied Tribal Communities, with case studies of three villages in Afghanistan.

Robert has also taught courses in Civilian Approaches to Security and Development at Vesalius College and is a seminar tutor of Methodology and the Fundamentals of Dissertation and Research course at the University of Kent.  He is presently a visiting research fellow with the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies in Kabul.

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NoelleAnne O’Sullivan

Posted on November 28, 2012 by acgr

Dr O’Sullivan is an accomplished and professional communicator with wide-ranging Public Relations experience communicating on behalf of EU institutions and EU Presidencies, using a broad range of communication tools.

Over a decade of experience, NoelleAnne has been involved in press relations, video and television production, organising and co-ordinating events and advocacy visits, editing promotional publications, and writing editorial copy for magazines, press, speeches, websites, blogs and social networking sites.
Currently engaged as a Visiting Lecturer of Political Communication for the Masters in Political Strategy and Communication at the University of Kent, Brussels School of International Studies (School of Politics and International Relations), Noelle-Anne teaches theories and practice of persuasive communication strategies by political actors using marketing techniques, employing traditional media, the Internet and Social Media, for election campaigns, government communication, and public diplomacy, with a view to understanding their effects on political knowledge, opinion change, citizen engagement, mobilization and participation.

Noelle-Anne has worked internally for press, information and communication units of the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Commission’s Representation in Ireland, the Government of Ireland (Department of Foreign Affairs), and a British Member of the European Parliament, as well as freelance for VRT, Endemol TV, Europarl TV, The Bulletin, and Committee of the Regions. She has been a press officer, website content writer and manager, video-journalist and producer, speechwriter, event co-ordinator, and political blogger.

Noelle-Anne holds a Ph.D. in Communications from Dublin City University (2003), and speaks fluent English, French and Italian.

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Richard Whitman

Posted on November 27, 2012 by acgr

Professor Richard G. Whitman is Head of the School of Politics and International Relations and Professor of Politics and International Relations in the School of Politics and International Relations. He joined the University of Kent in September 2011. He is also Director of the Global Europe Centre.

Professor Whitman is also an Associate Fellow at Chatham House (formerly known as the Royal Institute of International Affairs) and an Academic Fellow at the European Policy Centre. He regularly writes and researches for think tanks.

He was Professor of Politics at the University of Bath 2006-2011. Senior Fellow, Europe (April 2006-April 2007) and Head of the European Programme at Chatham House (April 2004 to April 2006). Prior to arrival at Chatham House he was Professor of European Studies at the University of Westminster and where he was also Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy from 2001-2003.

Richard Whitman is a contributor to leading journals, and has presented many papers and keynote addresses. His current research interests include the external relations and foreign and security and defence policies of the EU, and the governance and future priorities of the EU. He is on the editorial boards of European Security and Studia Diplomatica.

Professor Whitman is a regular media commentator, working with print and broadcast media at home and overseas. He has been interviewed widely on Europe and European integration. Recent coverage has included BBC radio and television, CNN, Bloomberg, CNBC, Newsweek, Reuters, the International Herald Tribune and the Wall Street Journal. Professor Whitman was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in October 2007 and from 2009-2012 the elected Chair of the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES). He is a Trustee of the British International Studies Association(BISA).

 

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