Marianna Karakoulaki is a Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham and was a Lecturer in Sociology at Anglia Ruskin University for 2024-2025. She is E-International Relations’ Articles Editor and a Director of E-IR’s Editorial Board. Her research focuses on critical border studies and looks at border violence, forced displacement and death. In addition, Marianna is an award-winning journalist with a focus on forced displacement in the Mediterranean. She is the editor (with Laura Southgate and Jakob Steiner) of ‘Critical Perspectives on Migration in the 21st Century‘ by E-IR in 2018. Her work can be found on her website.

Mia Hyun is a Doctoral Researcher in the Department of International Development at the University of Birmingham (UK). Her research focuses on gender based violence policy reform in Cambodia, from a feminist institutionalist and political will lens. Her research examines the degree to which GBV policies have been adopted, operationalised and implemented, and analyses the underlying causes leading to variations in outcomes. Her approach is grounded in gender regime theory, and looks at how gendered power asymmetries are woven through political processes. Her research examines the use of framing policy instruments rather than policy issues, and how this is informed by gendered priors. She has been working as a gender advisor in South East Asia for a range of donors for several years. You can find her on LinkedIn.

Scarlet Vass is a Doctoral Researcher in the International Development Department at the University of Birmingham. Her research examines the localisation of the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda in Uganda through the Local Action Plan (LAP) process.

Thomas Bobo is a Doctoral Researcher in the Department of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Birmingham (UK). His research focuses on the intersection between internal violence and the environment from the political and discursive perspective. He studies how environmental discourses within internal violent conflicts emerge, evolve, and are utilised as environmental politics gain prominence in international, national and local agendas. Thomas’s research examines the construction of competing ecological visions and how these become political vehicles for belligerents to affect the conflict’s power balance. His work currently focuses on the case of the Zapatista conflict (Chiapas, Mexico). Before starting his doctoral research, he worked at the French Agency for International Technical Cooperation and in the United Nations System.