Full faculty details

Mr Amr Aljowaily is currently Director of UN Affairs at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry. His diplomatic duties have spanned from Geneva, where he followed developmental and information society issues, through Washington, to the cabinets of the Minister and First Undersecretary and the departments of multilateral political and economic issues. He chaired the WTO’s Committee on Information Technology Agreement and the Global System of Trade Preferences Negotiating Group on Market Access. He holds a BA in Political Science and an MA in Middle East Studies from the American University in Cairo, and an MSc in International Relations from the London School of Economics. His publications include early analytical work on ICTs and international relations. He has lectured in Political Science at the American University in Cairo and served as board member of the Diplomatic Institute. He was International Relations Coordinator of the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

Dr Alexandra Délano Alonso is a faculty member and assistant professor at The New School University, New York. Her research interests are mainly in the fields of politics and international relations, with a focus on international migration, Mexico-US migration policies, diaspora engagement, Latin American politics, and regionalism in the Americas. She obtained her DPhil in International Relations at Oxford University in 2008. Her dissertation, 'Sending states' emigration policies in a bilateral context: Mexico's transition from limited to active engagement (1982-2006)', looks at the historical development of Mexico’s emigration policies in relation to domestic, transnational and international factors. At The New School she teaches the courses 'Immigration Politics in the US', 'Borders, Migrants and States', 'Democracy, Security and Migration in the Americas', 'Governing the Global' and 'Global Migration'. She also teaches an online course on 'Mexican Communities Abroad' for the Instituto Matías Romero.

http://newschool.academia.edu/AlexandraDelano/About

Mr Stefano Baldi is currently Director of the Diplomatic Institute of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He has served at the Permanent Missions of Italy to the United Nations in Geneva and in New York and at the Permanent Mission of Italy to the European Union in Brussels, where he developed several initiatives for the use of information technologies in the diplomatic community. Mr Baldi has an academic background in demography and international social issues. He also lectures on the use of Internet for ministries of foreign affairs and missions. Mr Baldi’s main field of research focuses on the impact and future developments of information technology on international affairs. He is the author of several books and articles on diplomatic issues and is a regular speaker at academic seminars.

http://hostings.diplomacy.edu/baldi/stefano/curricul.htm

Professor G. R. Berridge is Emeritus Professor of International Politics at the University of Leicester, where he was the founding Director of the Centre for the Study of Diplomacy. He was General Editor of the Macmillan Studies in Diplomacy series for many years and Associate Editor (with responsibility for twentieth century diplomatists) of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, to which he remains an adviser. He is the author of numerous books on diplomacy, including the best-selling textbook, Diplomacy: Theory and Practice, which is on the short reading list for the US Foreign Service exam, and has been translated into numerous languages, including Chinese. His most recent book, which appeared in 2011, is The Counter-Revolution in Diplomacy, and Other Essays. His Embassies in Armed Conflict will appear shortly, as will the third edition of what is now to be called The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Diplomacy. Professor Berridge has been an external examiner at many British universities, including London and Durham.

http://grberridge.diplomacy.edu/

Dr Andri Bisaz holds a PhD in Geography and Geology from Berne University, Switzerland. After several years in private industry, he served from 1973 to 2004 in the Swiss Foreign Ministry, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). After heading the Swiss Development Coordination Office for Central Africa in Yaoundé, Cameroon, he was in charge of the West Africa Division at SDC and later of the Division for North Africa and the Middle East. He is the author of various publications on development cooperation and the environment and has lectured for many years on diplomacy and development cooperation in Switzerland and Malta.

Stephanie Borg Psaila is a tutor on the Internet Governance Capacity Building Programme. She joined DiploFoundation in 2005, first as a participant, then as tutor/supervisor. Stephanie holds a Bachelor's degree in Law and Communications, a Master's in Contemporary Diplomacy, and a Doctorate in Law (LL.D.), from the University of Malta. Her doctorate dissertation was on the jurisdictional problems of the Internet, while her areas of interest include legal aspects, freedom of speech, and human rights on the Internet. She is a former journalist with more than five years' work experience with The Sunday Times of Malta, and a former columnist on education with The Times of Malta.

Ambassador Victor Camilleri is currently serving as Malta's Ambassador in Tripoli. He previously served as Malta’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva. In his forty-year career at the Maltese Ministry of Foreign Affairs he has occupied a number of senior administrative and diplomatic posts including that of Permanent Secretary. As Ambassador in Brussels he formed part of the Maltese team which negotiated Malta’s membership of the EU. Amb. Camilleri was chef de cabinet to Maltese Foreign Minister Prof. G. de Marco during his Presidency of the 45th Session of the UN General Assembly. He has extensive experience in multilateral affairs. He is actively interested in the promotion of IT as a tool of diplomacy and for some years served as Chairman of the Working Group on Informatics at the UN in New York.

Ms Alejandra Lopez Carbajal has more than seven years' experience in the field of climate change and international negotiations. She is currently Director for Climate Change at the Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs, with responsibility for coordinating the International Affairs Group of the Inter-ministerial Committee on Climate Change, a policy-making committee of the Federal Government. She was part of the core negotiating team at the 16th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP16) and the 6th Meeting of the Parties of the Kyoto Protocol (CMP6) where the Cancun Agreements were adopted in December 2010. She previously worked at the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. She holds a BA (Hons) in International Relations from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Ms Solange Cross is a Junior Research Fellow at the Institute of International Relations (IIR), at the University of the West Indies, St Augustine Campus in Trinidad and Tobago, where she currently lectures the postgraduate courses Theory and Practice of Diplomacy and Contemporary International Diplomacy. A Doctoral candidate, her research interests include the impact and role of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in diplomacy and international relations, particularly in the context of the collaborative negotiations framework of the Caribbean Community.

Priyanthi Daluwatte is from Sri Lanka. She holds a degree in Biological Sciences, an MSc in Computer Science, and an MPhil in Pharmaceutical Science from the University of Colombo. Priyanthi joined Diplo as a tutor in 2007 after completing the Internet Governance Capacity Building Programme in 2006. She has work experience in higher education policy, and in ICT4D projects bridging the digital divide. She works as a volunteer in Sarvodaya Fusion, Sri Lanka. She was a speaker at the launching of telecentre.org in WSIS, Tunis (2005), and has participated in other conferences in ICT4D, including GKP International Forum 2005, 2006, and eAsia 2007, GK3 in 2007, and the IGF in 2008, 2009 and 2010. She also co-ordinated the activities for GKP South Asia Regional partnership in 2006-2007. Her interests are in higher education policy, Internet governance, e-learning, research on ICT4D, and in telecentre community. Priyanthi enjoys traveling to historic places.

Adela Danciu is a Law and Political Sciences graduate of the University of Bucharest. She holds an MA in International and EU Law. She worked for nine years as a legal expert on the Committee for IT&C of the Romanian Chamber of Deputies. Adela was a student of the IGCBP in 2006, and has since then become more involved by tutoring and co-ordinating subsequent phases, writing course texts, and participating in IGF and EuroDIG meetings, as well as participating in the European Summer School on IG in Meissen, 2007, as a Diplo fellow. Her Internet governance interests focus on human rights and legal issues.

Dr Petru Dumitriu is currently the Permanent Observer of the Council of Europe to the Office of the United Nations and other international organisations in Geneva. He was the representative of Romania in the Executive Board of UNESCO (2010–2011) and national coordinator of the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (2008–2011). From 2006 till the end of 2010 he served as Director General for Multilateral Affairs and Director General for Global Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Prior to this appointment he served in the Permanent Mission of Romania to the United Nations in Geneva (2001–2005) and New York (1994–1998). From 2006 to 2009 he served in the International Advisory Board of New or Restored Democracies. He was an elected member of the UN Committee on Contributions (2001–2009). He was rapporteur of the Geneva phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (2002). In 1997, he acted as Secretary-General of the Third International Conference of New and Restored Democracies. He was also vice-president of the UNICEF Executive Board (1995), the UN Commission on Disarmament (1997), and the Special Political and Decolonisation Committee (1997). His flagship books are The United Nations System in the Context of Globalization: The Reform as Will and Representation (in Romanian) and Diversité dans l’unité: La capacité de négociation de l’Union Européenne au sein de la Commission des droits de l’homme des Nations unies.
 

Mr Haraldur Þór Egilsson is a historian with a BA degree (first class) from the University of Iceland and an MA (with distinction) in Diplomatic Studies from the University of Leicester. He is a part-time teacher at the University of Akureyri and Director of Akureyri Museum. His publications include The Origins, Use and Development of Hot Line Diplomacy, Discussion Papers in Diplomacy, No. 85, March 2003 (Netherlands Institute of International Relations Clingendael), and a co-authored book on education in Icelandic. He is currently writing chapters in a book about preserved churches in north Iceland. His research interests are diplomacy, the management of foreign policy, cold war diplomacy, and environmental diplomacy.

Mrs Liz Galvez was a senior diplomat with the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office until 2006.  During her 33-year career, she served in a wide range of diplomatic jobs in London and several overseas postings, including Finland, Central America, UN Geneva, OSCE Vienna, and UN New York. Following a posting in Romania in the late 1990s, she was seconded for two years as a senior policy adviser to the Romanian Foreign Minister. She continues to provide advice to the Romanian Foreign Ministry on human resources development and diplomatic training. After retiring, she was appointed Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Romania. She is currently studying for a Master's degree at University of London in Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict. She speaks operational Spanish, Romanian, and French.

Biljana Glisovic Milic is from Belgrade, Serbia. She is an electrical engineer and is currently working as an account manager with EUnet, an Internet Service Provider. She has been involved with DiploFoundation since 2005 as a participant of the IG course in Belgrade, IGCBP 2006 and Internet Governance research projects. She is tutor on the ISOC NGL eLearning Programme, Diplo IGCBP foundation phase, the advanced module on Infrastructure and Connection Costs and on the Research Phase course on Infrastructure. Biljana participated in the WSIS PrepCom II in Geneva, WSIS in Tunis and at the IGF meeting in Athens as a DiploFoundation fellow. Her main interests are the extension of the telecommunication infrastructure in developing countries, IPv6 and ICT national strategies. Her research includes a paper on Telecommunication Infrastructure: Recommendations for Reasonable Costs of Internet Access. Biljana’s plans are to follow future activities on Internet governance.

Marsha Guthrie is from the island of Jamaica, and is currently an Online Market Research Executive with PricewaterhouseCoopers. She is a graduate of the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados, and the University of Westminster, London, where she obtained an MA in Applied Social and Market Research. She has been a tutor with the DiploFoundation on the Internet Governance Capacity Building Programme since 2006, and has contributed in various fora on Internet governance issues over the years. Her specific areas of interest are Internet security and the use of technology for sustainable development.

Tracy Hackshaw is an alumnus of DiploFoundation’s Internet Governance Capacity Building Programme (2008), and an ICANN Fellowship Alumni at both the Sydney and Seoul meetings (2009), and at the Cartagena meeting (2010). Tracy was an Internet Society (ISOC) Ambassador to the 4th IGF in Sharm-el Sheikh (2009), and returned as an ISOC Ambassador for the 5th IGF in Vilnius (2010). He is the vice-chair of the ISOC Trinidad and Tobago Chapter (in formation) and a member of DiploFoundation's research and teaching faculty. Tracy is a national of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and has been educated at first-degree level in Sociology and Psychology at the University of the West Indies (St Augustine) and at graduate level in International Management at the University of London (Royal Holloway). Professionally, he is the Chief Solution Architect and Team Lead of the Solution Architect Office for the Government of Trinidad and Tobago’s National ICT Company (iGovTT). He is part of a team providing ICT thought leadership to iGovTT, and by extension, the Government, in several areas falling under the rubric of Internet Governance including the flagship and award-winning ‘ttconnect Multi-Channel Service Delivery initiative’.

Ms Katharina Höne is currently writing her PhD at the Department of International Politics, Aberystwyth University, Wales. Her research focuses on states and their interaction in international organisations from a constructivist perspective. Previously, she was part of a research project on the Special Representatives of the UN Secretary-General and their role in peace processes at the University of Jena, Germany. She obtained a Master in Diplomatic Studies with distinction from the University of Leicester in the UK, and experienced the practical side of her studies during an internship with the German Foreign Ministry. Her research interests include international organisations, the UN Secretary-General, international mediation, the theory of international relations, international environmental politics, and climate change diplomacy.

Dr Anna Khakee is a specialist on democratisation and democracy promotion. Her consultancy and previous work experience has also focused extensively on human security and development issues. She holds a PhD from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. Currently, she is a consultant to the Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre, Oslo, and an Associate of The Policy Practice, a leading UK-based development consultancy company. She has previously acted as a consultant to FRIDE, EuroMeSCo, Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), UNDP-BCPR, and Amnesty International, amongst others. Dr Khakee has published a number of articles and book chapters internationally. Recent publications include The Western Saharan autonomy proposal and political reform in Morocco (NOREF Working Paper, 2011); Interests vs. Ideals: EU Democracy Promotion in Nigeria (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010); and Assessing Democracy Assistance: Morocco (FRIDE/World Movement for Democracy, 2010).

Dr Jovan Kurbalija is the founding director of DiploFoundation. He is a former diplomat with a professional and academic background in international law, diplomacy, and information technology. In 1992, he established the Unit for IT and Diplomacy at the Mediterranean Academy of Diplomatic Studies in Malta. In 2002, after more than ten years of successful work in training, research, and publishing, the Unit evolved into DiploFoundation. Dr Kurbalija currently directs online learning courses on ICT and diplomacy and lectures in academic and training institutions in Switzerland, the United States, Austria, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Malta. His main areas of research are diplomacy and the development of an international Internet regime, the use of hypertext in diplomacy, online negotiations and diplomatic law. He is the author of An Introduction to Internet Governance, which has been translated into six languages and is now in its 4th edition.

Christopher Lamb is Special Adviser to the Australian Red Cross and the IFRC. He also has advisory responsibilities with many National Societies, business groups, and universities. As Special Adviser on International Relations for the IFRC until his retirement in June 2010, he was responsible for the diplomatic positioning of the IFRC and National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies in the international community, including the United Nations and other intergovernmental bodies as well as with major international non-governmental organisations and other entities. He coordinated the development of IFRC positions in various humanitarian and political fields, supporting the work of National Societies in these respects through the development of the IFRC’s policy on humanitarian diplomacy. Before joining IFRC in 2000, he was an Australian diplomat and Ambassador to Myanmar, Serbia, Romania and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, after serving in several multilateral posts and as a foreign ministry legal adviser.

Dr Andrei Mikheyev is a project manager at Yandex, Russia's biggest Internet company. Prior to going into the private sector he worked as Director of the Internet Politics Centre and lecturer at Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia. He studied Political Science and International Relations in Russia and the USA, and holds a PhD in Political Science from MGIMO-University. Dr Mikheyev became involved with Diplo in 2004, first as a student in the Postgraduate Diploma in Diplomacy and then as a tutor in the Internet Governance Capacity Building Programme and assistant lecturer/coordinator for other Diplo courses. He has also contributed, both as translator and as project manager, to the translation and publication of Diplo’s An Introduction to Internet Governance and Building.org books in Russia.

Sheba Mohammid, from Trinidad and Tobago, is interested in multi-disciplinary and transformative strategies for ICT4D. Her work is focused on Digital Inclusion in Small Island Developing States. She serves as a Research Expert on the Internet Governance Africa Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) Programme, a Commonwealth fellow and an ACP fellow to the IGF where she has presented and moderated panels on Media Literacy and ICT4D. She is also a trainer in Internet Governance and ICT Policy and Strategy for DiploFoundation. Sheba continues research on Human Behaviour on the Internet, Youth Use of Social Media, and Futurist Deployment of ICT as a Catalyst for Development. Sheba works in Trinidad where she is an ICT Policy Specialist. Here she has responsibility for major considerations in creating an enabling Policy and Legislative Environment. Her work has spanned issues of an emerging Knowledge Society such as ICT Strategies, ICT Governance, A2K, e-Waste, Multi-Channel Service Delivery, Data Protection and e-Transactions.

Mwende Njiraini has been a tutor of the IGCBP for the Africa Region since 2006, having graduated from the IGCBP in 2005. Mwende has represented her country, Kenya, at the IGF in Athens, Hyderabad, Sharm el Sheikh, and Lithuania and has been a facilitator in both the national and East African IGFs. Mwende is a Telecommunication Engineer by profession, and currently works at the Kenyan Communications Commission, the communications regulator in Kenya. She holds a Master of Communications Management with Merit in Business Management, Coventry University, and a Master of Communications Management, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. 

Jean Paul Nkurunziza, from Bujumbura, Burundi, works as a consultant and is involved in different civil society organisations registered in Burundi, including the Burundi Youth Training Centre, ISOC Burundi and Burundi Community Telecentre Network. After his graduation in Educational Sciences from the University of Burundi in 2001, he became interested in ICT issues. His began dealing with IG-related issues in 2007, when he attended the Internet Governance Capacity Building Programme as a participant. After taking part in the Training for Tutors programme soon after, he joined DiploFoundation as a tutor in 2008. He was granted a six-month fellowship with the IGF Secretariat in 2010.

Ms Utchay Okoli is a native of Nigeria. She holds a BSc in Botany (University of Benin-Nigeria), a Master in Contemporary Diplomacy (University of Malta) and an MSc in Disaster Management and Sustainable Development (University of Northumbria, UK). Her dissertation was a policy study on the MDG3 and the strategies implemented by the Nigerian government and other development organisations to address the socio-economic vulnerability of the Nigerian woman. Since 2003, her focus has been on capacity building in the development sector with particular emphasis on the development and implementation of policies that effectively address socio-economic hazards. Her work underscores the importance of people’s empowerment as a vital development asset, especially for emerging economies constantly grappling with scarce resources and severe capacity constraints. Utchay has also worked as a lead facilitator for an NGO in Nigeria.

Kwasi Adu-Boahen Opare is an assistant lecturer at the Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department, at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi, Ghana. He holds an MSc in Telecommunication Engineering and a BSc in Electrical and Electronic Engineering, all from the same university where he lectures. Prior to his appointment as assistant lecturer, Kwasi worked as an ICT tutor and systems analyst (network/systems administrator) at the university. His interests include data communication networks and protocols, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) and electronic voting. He is also involved in the activities of the Ghana Network Operators Group (ghNOG) as a trainer. Kwasi successfully took part in IGCBP 2009, and was awarded a fellowship to attend the 2009 IGF meeting in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt.

Virginia (Ginger) Paque was born in the United States, but has lived in Venezuela for the past 35 years. An educator and administrator by profession, she has 25 years’ experience in business and manufacturing systems consulting. As a board member of the United Nations Association of Venezuela, her work as the Venezuelan member of the World Federation of United Nations Associations Task Force on WSIS brought her into the world of Internet governance. She is currently IGCBP coordinator for DiploFoundation, enjoying the opportunity to extend online capacity building programmes to developing countries in different languages. The research and implementation of e-participation and online inclusion possibilities for global policy processes is an another important priority area.

Ginger is an active member of Diplo's Internet governance community. ​Click here to join the community. 

Vladimir Radunović is a coordinator of e-diplomacy educational and training programmes of DiploFoundation. Prior to this, he has coordinated the Internet governance and policy programmes since 2005. He has actively participated in the global process since the WSIS Geneva meeting in 2003, and has been a key resource person and speaker on Internet governance, ICT policy, capacity development, e-diplomacy, education of policy-makers and community building at a number of international events. Mr Radunović holds a Diploma (dipl.ing.) in Electrical Engineering from the University of Belgrade, Serbia, and a Master in Contemporary Diplomacy from the University of Malta with thesis on e-diplomacy. His research interests are in capacity development and online learning, inclusive policy and process negotiations and planning, e-diplomacy, broadband and access policy, network neutrality, cyber-security and Internet safety, and strategies for bridging the digital divide.

Ambassador Kishan R. Rana was educated at St Stephens College, Delhi University and holds a BA (Honors) and an MA in Economics (First Division). He joined the Indian Foreign Service in 1960, retiring in 1995. He served as ambassador to Algeria, Czechoslovakia, Kenya, Mauritius, and Germany; Joint Secretary, in Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s Office (1981–1982); and head of personnel administration in the Ministry of External Affairs. Foreign languages: Chinese and French.

In 1999, following a chance encounter, Amb. Rana joined the e-learning teaching faculty of DiploFoundation and was named Professor Emeritus by Diplo in 2010. In 1999, he published his first book, Inside Diplomacy, a critical examination of how the Indian diplomatic system should be improved. That book prompted a major reform initiative and was followed by: Managing Corporate Culture (co-author, 2000); Bilateral Diplomacy (2002); The 21st Century Ambassador (2004); Asian Diplomacy (2007); Foreign Ministries (co-editor, 2007); Economic Diplomacy (co-editor, 2011); and Diplomacy of the Twenty-first Century (2011). Currently working on two books, he has published 50 articles on current affairs in academic journals.

Amb. Rana served as a Commonwealth Adviser to the Namibia Foreign Ministry for six months, (2000–2001). Other posts: Honorary Fellow, Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi; Archives By-Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge; Public Policy Scholar, Woodrow Wilson Center, Washington DC, 2005; Distinguished Fellow, Institute of Diplomacy and Foreign Relations, Kuala Lumpur.

He is a regular guest lecturer at the China Foreign Affairs University, Beijing; Foreign Service Institute, Nairobi; economic diplomacy program at the London School of Economics. He joined the guest faculty of the Diplomatic Academy, Vienna in 2011 and has conducted training programmes at Bangladesh, Bahrain, Iran, Kenya, Namibia, the Netherlands, Oman, Russia, Switzerland, Thailand, and Trinidad and Tobago. Amb. Rana has produced distance learning programmes for the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in a self-learning format; subsequently, the British Foreign Office adapted one of these.

http://kishanrana.diplomacy.edu/
 

Katitza Rodriguez is Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) international rights director. She concentrates on comparative policy of international privacy issues, with special emphasis on law enforcement, government surveillance, and cross border data flows. Her work also focuses on cybersecurity at the intersection of privacy, freedom of expression, and copyright enforcement. She is an advisor to the UN Internet Governance Forum (2009-2010), and a member of the Advisory Board of Privacy International. Before joining EFF, Katitza was director of the international privacy program at the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington D.C., where amongst other things, she worked on The Privacy and Human Rights Report, an international survey of privacy law and developments. Katitza is well-known to many in global civil society and in international policy venues for her work at the UN Internet Governance Forum and her pivotal role in the creation and ongoing success of the Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, for which she served as the civil society liaison while at EPIC from 2008 to March 2010. Katitza holds a Bachelor of Law degree from the University of Lima, Peru.

Mr François Rohner holds an MBA in Economics from the Institute of Management, University of St Gallen, Switzerland. He served in the early 1970s as economic advisor for regional cooperation in Rwanda and joined the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) in 1975. After heading the SDC coordination office for Eastern Africa in Nairobi, Kenya between 1975 and 1981, he was in charge of SDC's Division of Multilateral Affairs until 2006. He has chaired numerous international working groups within the UN system (particularly on UN reform in development cooperation) and the OECD.

Carolina Rossini, JD, LLM, MA in International Negotiations, MBA, is an expert in intellectual property with 10 years of experience - as a lawyer and academic - in software, content, internet licensing and commons-based approaches. She works on OER policy and projects, founding and leading OER-Brazil. She serves on the Global Agenda Council for Intellectual Property for the World Economic Forum and is a Board Member at the Brazilian Institute of Internet Law. Previously, she led the Brazil Catalyst Project at Wikimedia Foundation and was a Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard.  In Brazil, she worked for Telefonica Group, the Ford Foundation, Creative Commons Brazil, and FGV Law School, where she co-ordinated the Legal Clinical Program and taught law.

Ambassador Paramjit (Pummy) S. Sahai served in the Indian Foreign Service (1963–2000) as India’s Ambassador/High Commissioner to Malawi, Lesotho, Yemen Democratic Republic, Sweden, and Malaysia; and as Deputy Chief of Mission in Moscow at the time of the split of the Soviet Union in 1991. He was extensively involved with consular work and Indian Diaspora and migration issues as Head of the Consular, Passport, and Visa Division, Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi (1981–1984). He was responsible for the drafting and passage of the Indian Emigration Act (1983) and led the Indian delegation at the UN Working Group (1982–1984) for drafting the UN Convention on Migrant Workers and their Families. He has published papers dealing with cultural diplomacy, media, diaspora, migration, and India’s relationship with South, South-East, and Central Asia, ASEAN, and SAARC, including a paper on out-migration from India (published in a book by the ILO in 2004). He edited two books – India-Eurasia: The Way Ahead (2008) and Women Guiding the Destiny of South Asia (2010) – and published reports – The Study of Indian Diaspora with Particular Reference to Development and Migration from the State of Punjab for the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs, Government of India (2011) and  Migration and Development with Focus on Remittances in Agriculture Sector for FAO’s Country Study on India (2011).

Dr Biljana Scott was trained as a linguist (BA in Chinese, M.Phil and D.Phil in Linguistics, University of Oxford). She is a Senior Lecturer in Political Language and Public Diplomacy at DiploFoundation and a lecturer at Oxford University and the London Academy of Diplomacy. She workshops internationally on Language and Diplomacy, Public Diplomacy, and Public Speaking. Her current reseacrh is on the 'unsaid'.

Dr Waheguru Pal Singh Sidhu is the Visiting Fellow for Disarmament and a former Director of the New Issues in Security Course (NISC) at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP). He is a Senior Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, working primarily on the Managing Global Order and Peacebuilding as Statebuilding programs. Prior to joining CIC, he served as Vice President of Programs at the EastWest Institute in New York, and as Director of the New Issues in Security Course at the GCSP. Dr Sidhu has researched, written, and taught extensively on the United Nations and regionalism, peace operations, Southern Asia, confidence-building-measures, disarmament, arms control, and non-proliferation issues. His recent publications include: The Iraq Crisis and World Order: Structural, Institutional and Normative Challenges; Arms Control after Iraq: Normative and Operational Challenges; Kashmir: New Voices, New Approaches; and China and India: Cooperation or Conflict? He has also published in leading international journals, including Arms Control Today, Asian Survey, Disarmament Diplomacy, Disarmament Forum, International Peacekeeping, Jane's Intelligence Review, Politique Etrangère, and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. Dr Sidhu was the consultant to the first, second, and third United Nations Panel of Governmental Experts on Missiles in 2001-2002, 2004 and 2007-2008 respectively. He was also appointed as a member of the Resource Group set up to assist the United Nations High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change in 2004. Dr Sidhu earned his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. He holds a Masters in International Relations from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and a Bachelor's degree in History from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University, India.

Mr Andrej Skrinjaric was born in Karlovac, Croatia, and studied Chinese Language and Literature at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, graduating in 1999. In 2000, he attended a postgraduate course in European Studies at the Alternative Academic Educational Network (AAEN), Belgrade. In 2003, he obtained his Postgraduate Diploma in Diplomacy from University of Malta. His thesis was entitled Multilingualism and the Internet. From 1999–2002 he worked as a freelance interpreter/translator, Chinese-Serbian, Chinese-English, and English-Serbian. He currently works for DiploFoundation as Online Programmes Coordinator.

Tore Svenning joined the Norwegian Red Cross in 1985, following some years of volunteering, and has been posted in Sudan, Geneva, Jordan, Cyprus, Kuwait, Israel, Moscow and Budapest. From an operational track, he shifted to humanitarian diplomacy just after the Federation obtained observer status in the United Nations General Assembly in 1994. He worked in external relations in the Secretariat, supporting the New York Office and developing relations with institutions like the Asian Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and Geneva based UN agencies as well as the local diplomatic community. His training was in theoretical economics and history.

Ms Stacey-Marie Syne works in the field of environmental and knowledge management in UN entities.She graduated from the University of the West Indies (UWI) with a Master of Philosophy in Microbiology (2009). During postgraduate study she worked as a tutor and research assistant at UWI for courses she once read in her undergraduate majors: Environment & Natural Resource Management and Biology. She graduated with a BSc (Hons) in 2004 from UWI St Augustine and has certificates in Italian and French from UWI and the Caribbean Examination Council, respectively.

Mr Christiaan Sys is currently working as a parliamentary adviser in the Private Officer of the Belgian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. He has previously worked as parliamentary adviser to the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, as a programme support officer for a British government department, and as an intern in the House of Commons for Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP. He holds a Licentiaat in International Relations from Antwerp University (Belgium) and a Master in Diplomatic Studies (Distinction) from the University of Leicester.  He has an interest in diplomacy, the United Nations, and the environment.

Mr Olaph Terribile served as Director of Protocol and Consular Services at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Malta. In his 28-year diplomatic career, he has served at various missions overseas. He holds an MA in Chinese literature from the University of Hebei in the People’s Republic of China where he served as a diplomat for a number of years. He also served at the Maltese Embassy in Riyadh and in London. Since 2004, Mr Terribile has been a regular lecturer at Diplo, where he lectures on protocol procedures including practical exercises on etiquette.

Mr Ibrahim Uvais is a PhD candidate at the School of Arts and Social Sciences in Monash University, Malaysia. His research focuses on identity constructs of small island states in global environmental politics. He previously worked in the civil service of the Maldives. Between 1995 and 2006, he served at different departments of the President’s Office including Foreign Relations, Financial Affairs, and Economic Policy. From 2006 to 2009, he was posted as First Secretary at the Maldives High Commission in Kuala Lumpur. Mr Uvais holds a Bachelor of Commerce from the Flinders University of South Australia and a Master's in Business Administration from the University of Western Sydney. He recently completed research towards a Postgraduate Diploma at Monash University, and a Master in Contemporary Diplomacy from the University of Malta.

Dr Barbara Zanchetta is a Visiting Fellow at the GCSP working on disarmament and a Researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA) in Helsinki, where she focuses on US foreign policy, transatlantic relations and “out of area” issues, and nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation.

A historian of the Cold War and of American foreign policy, Dr Zanchetta has studied arms control negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union, American policies in the Middle East and neighboring regions (such as the Horn of Africa), US-Iranian relations and, more recently, the Iranian nuclear programme. She has published various articles and book chapters on these and related issues and has frequently offered comments for the media. She is currently completing a book titled From Dominance to Leadership: The Transformation of American Power in the 1970s and is the co-author of Transatlantic Relations since 1945: An Introduction (London: Routledge: 2012).

Dr Zanchetta earned her PhD in History of International Relations at the University of Florence in 2007, and her Italian university degree in Political Science at the University of Urbino in 2003. She has lectured at the universities of Urbino, Florence, Tampere and Helsinki. Before joining FIIA and the GCSP, she held an Academy of Finland post-doctoral research fellowship at the University of Tampere and was a scholar at the Machiavelli Center for Cold War Studies in Italy.