Mika Aaltola | Chair
Dr. Mika Aaltola is the Director of FIIA. He is also a tenured professor of International Relations and European Union Affairs at Tallinn University (part-time), Estonia, and holds the rank of docent at Tampere University. He has been a visiting fellow at Cambridge University, Sciences Po (CERI), and Johns Hopkins as well as a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota. His areas of expertise include the U.S. global role, dynamics of major power politics, democratic vulnerability, pandemic security, and Finnish foreign policy.
Siobhan O'Neil | Presenter
Siobhan leads UNU-CPR’s Managing Exits from Armed Conflict (MEAC) initiative. Previously, she managed UNU’s children and extreme violence and (DDR) in contemporary conflicts projects. Siobhan has worked for UNMAS, the RAND Corporation, the NY State Office of Homeland Security, and the Congressional Research Service (CRS). Siobhan O’Neil holds a PhD in International Relations from UCLA.
Marta Furlan | Presenter
Marta Furlan holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of St Andrews. Her doctoral dissertation studied governance by Salafi-Jihadist armed groups in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen from a comparative and multi-dimensional perspective. Her research focuses on violent non-state actors, rebel governance, civil wars, the Middle East. She is currently a consultant on Syria and Yemen for Geneva Call and a postdoctoral researcher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Ana Arjona | Presenter
Ana Arjona (PhD, Yale University) is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science at Northwestern University. Her research investigates institutional change and civilian agency in contexts of organized violence. She is the author of the award-winning book Rebelocracy: Social Order in Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2016), co-editor of Rebel Governance in Civil War (Cambridge University Press, 2015), and author of several articles and book chapters.
Marine Gassier | Presenter
Marine Gassier is a PhD Candidate in International Relations at Sciences Po Paris. She holds a Master of Arts from Johns Hopkins University - SAIS (2012). Her dissertation project investigates the determinants of the evolution of insurgent movements, with a particular focus on conflicts in the Horn of Africa. She is also a consultant for the World Bank Africa Gender Innovation Lab, working on several experimental studies assessing the impact of youth employment and entrepreneurship programs in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Yvan Guichaoua | Discussant
Dr. Yvan Guichaoua is Senior Lecturer at the Brussels School of International Studies at the University of Kent. He is also a former teaching fellow at Yale University and a research officer at the University of Oxford. His focus is the dynamics of insurgency formation, rebel governance, and state responses in Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali, and Niger since 2004. Since 2007, Yvan Guichaoua has been studying recurring rebellions in Niger and Mali and the rise of Jihadism in the Sahel as well as foreign interventionism.