Panel 5: Looking forward: Informing effective responses to enduring and emerging conflicts

Erica Gaston – United Nations University / XCEPT Research Fellow

Dr. Erica Gaston is Head of the Conflict Prevention and Sustaining Peace Programme at United Nations University Centre for Policy Research. Prior to joining UNU-CPR, Dr. Gaston worked for 15 years as a practitioner, lawyer and conflict analyst, focusing in particular on issues of conflict-related human rights and civilian protection, peacebuilding and dispute resolution, rule of law development and security sector reform, and proxy and sub-state conflict dynamics. She has significant field experience in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Syria and Pakistan, among others, with organisations including the Open Society Foundations, the Center for Civilians in Conflict, the Global Public Policy institute (GPPi), and others. Dr. Gaston is also a Non-Resident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and with GPPi. Gaston has published and provided commentary widely, including on Lawfare.com, War on the Rocks, the Guardian, Foreign Policy, CNN, Al Jazeera, BBC and others. Her past academic articles in the Harvard International Law Journal and the Harvard National Security Law Journal have examined emerging definitions of soldier self-defense and accountability for private security companies. She has also edited three book compendiums focused on the changing norms and practices in 21st-century conflict, and has a forthcoming book on risk mitigation in US partnerships with local forces with Columbia University Press. She is currently a guest columnist for World Politics Review.

Heather Marquette – University of Birmingham

Professor of Development Politics in the International Development Department at the University of Birmingham, and the Director of one of our sister programmes, the Serious Organised Crime & Anti-Corruption Evidence (SOC ACE) research programme. Heather is an Expert Member of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organised Crime’s expert network, a member of the RUSI State Threats Task Force, and a Lead Advisor and founding member of the global Thinking & Working Politically Community of Practice. Her research focuses on transnational threats, particularly corruption and organised crime, as well as aid and foreign policy, governance and political analysis. 

Renad Mansour – Chatham House

Renad Mansour is a senior research fellow in the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House. Prior to joining Chatham House, he was an El-Erian fellow at the Carnegie Middle East Centre. He is also a research fellow at the Cambridge Security Initiative at Cambridge University, and from 2013 he held positions as lecturer of International Studies and supervisor at the Faculty of Politics, also at Cambridge. Since 2011, he has been a senior research fellow at the Iraq Institute for Strategic Studies in Beirut and was adviser to the Kurdistan Regional Government Civil Society Ministry between 2008 and 2010. Renad is the Chatham House Research Lead for the Iraq and Levant case study on XCEPT.

Tobias Hagmann – swisspeace / XCEPT Research Fellow

Tobias Hagmann is an XRF Fellow and works for swisspeace and the University of Basel. His latest book (with F. Stepputat) is Trade Makes States: Governing the Greater Somali Economy. Tobias has worked as a consultant, analyst and professor in development studies with appointments in the US, Denmark and Switzerland.

Nathan Shea – The Asia Foundation

Nathan Shea is is Programme Manager of the X-Border Local Research Network and Assistant Director of The Asia Foundation’s Conflict & Fragility unit. He has over ten years’ experience working on conflict, peacebuilding, violent extremism and development research and programming across South and Southeast Asia. He’s authored numerous book chapters, peer-reviewed journal articles and reports, including on the peace processes in Aceh, Indonesia and in Mindanao, the Philippines.  He holds a Master of International Relations from the University of Melbourne.