Gilbert Achcar grew up in Lebanon, researched and taught in Beirut, Paris and Berlin, and has been since 2007 Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at SOAS, University of London. His many books include: The Clash of Barbarisms: The Making of the New World Disorder, published in 15 languages; Perilous Power: The Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy, co-authored with Noam Chomsky; The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives; The People Want: A Radical Exploration of the Arab Uprising; and Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising.
Burcu Binbuğa is a postdoctoral researcher at Soft Authoritarianisms Research Group and the Department of Anthropology and Cultural Research at University of Bremen. Her research and teaching interests lie in the fields of environmental politics, social movements, environmental activism, and authoritarianism. Her current research examines the political economy of authoritarianism in Turkey, focusing on the waste trade between European countries and Turkey.
Estella Carpi is an Associate Professor in Humanitarian Studies at University College London. Social anthropologist by training, she researches places which are part of her life. With a PhD in the Anthropology of Humanitarianism from the University of Sydney (2015), most of her work has revolved around the identity politics of humanitarian aid and welfare, as well as urban and faith-inspired forms of aid provision. After studying Arabic in Damascus (2005 and 2007), she worked for several research and academic institutions in Lebanon, Egypt, the UAE, and Turkey. She is author of several academic articles in English, Italian, French, Portuguese and Arabic. She published one book in Italian "Specchi Scomodi. Etnografia delle Migrazioni Forzate nel Libano Contemporaneo" (Mimesis, 2019) and "The Politics of Crisis-Making. Forced Displacement and Cultures of Assistance in Lebanon" (Indiana University Press, 2025).
Francesco Cavatorta is professor of political science at Laval University in Quebec City Canada. His research focuses on dynamics of democratization and authoritarian resilience in the Arab world. He is currently working on a project examining the relationship between neoliberal economics and Salafi political parties.
Joseph Daher is a Swiss-Syrian academic, and expert on the Middle East’s Political Economy, holding two PhDs in Development Studies and Political Science. He is the author of several books, including Syria After the Uprising, Hezbollah: The Political Economy of Lebanon’s Party of God, Palestine and Marxism. Joseph teaches at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland and the university of Ghent in Belgium, while also working with UN agencies, NGOs and research centers in consulting roles.
Rosita Di Peri is associate professor at the Department of Culture, Politics and Society at the University of Turin, Italy where she teaches ‘Politics, Institutions and Cultures of Middle East’ and 'Mashrek Politics and Institutions'. Her research interests are on democracy and authoritarianism in Middle East with a focus on Lebanon. She is the scientific coordinator of the Summer School ‘Understanding the Middle East’ and member of the board of SeSaMO (Italian Association for Middle Eastern Studies). She published several articles in Italian and international Journals, such as ‘Rivista Italiana di Politiche Pubbliche’, ‘Rivista Italiana di Scienza Politica’, ‘British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies’, ‘Politics Religion and Ideology’, 'Mediterranean Politics', ‘Oriente Moderno’ and ‘Meridiana’. She authored a book on the politics of contemporary Lebanon (Il Libano contemporaneo, Carocci, Roma 2017, in Italian) and co-edited several books and Special Issues.
Dr. Tamirace Fakhoury is an associate Professor of Political Science and Global Refugee and Migration Studies at the Global Refugee Studies Research Group (GRS) at Aalborg University in Copenhagen. She is also the Scientific advisor to the Kuwait Chair at Sciences Po in Paris (2020-2022). Dr. Fakhoury has taught at the summer sessions at the University of California in Berkeley between 2012 and 2016. In fall 2018 and summer 2019, she will be a visiting fellow at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg/ Centre for Global Cooperation Research where she will carry out a project on the European Union’s role in the polycentric governance of displacement.
Gökçe Günel is Associate Professor in Anthropology at Rice University. Her research investigates how infrastructure transforms amid energy and climate change-related challenges. Her first book, Spaceship in the Desert: Energy, Climate Change and Urban Design in Abu Dhabi (Duke University Press, 2019), focuses on the construction of renewable energy and clean technology infrastructures in the United Arab Emirates, more specifically concentrating on the Masdar City project. Currently, she is completing All of the Above: A Global Future of Energy (Duke University Press, forthcoming), which analyzes how energy infrastructure shapes South-South relations. Dr. Günel co-authored "A Manifesto for Patchwork Ethnography" (2020) and co-leads Patchwork Ethnography. The book Patchwork Ethnography is forthcoming with the University of Chicago Press in 2026.
Raymond Hinnebusch is professor of International relations and Middle East politics at the University of St. Andrews, Fife, Scotland. He is founder and director of the Centre for Syrian Studies. His major works include Egyptian Politics Under Sadat (Cambridge University Press 1985); The International Politics of the Middle East (Manchester University Press, 2003, 2nd ed. 2015) and Syria: Revolution from above (Routledge: 2001);. He co- edited The Foreign Policies of Middle East States, with A. Ehteshami, Lynne Rienner Publishers,2nd edition, 2014; Turkey-Syria Relation: between Enmity and Amity, with Ozlem Tur, Ashgate Publishers, 2013; Sovereignty after Empire: Comparing the Middle East and Central Asia, with Sally Cummings, Edinburgh University Press, 2011; The Iraq War: Causes and Consequences, with Rick Fawn; and Syria: From Reform to Revolt: Politics and International relations, with Tina Zintl, Syracuse University Press, 2014.
Ibrahim Jouhari is a data-driven migration, governance, and electoral affairs expert with significant experience working with various NGOs, universities, and think tanks, such as DRI, NDI, FNF, IRI, UN Women, USJ, AUB, LAU, and UNDP.
As the project manager of a pioneering irregular migration monitoring project with FNF Madrid, Ibrahim Jouhari has been instrumental in collecting first-hand data on irregular migration by sea out of Lebanon. His leadership in this role has led to the drafting and publication of a comprehensive report on the migration trends from Lebanon since 2019, underscoring the need for increased cooperation with the EU due to the rapidly rising number of Lebanese migrants. Previously, as Lead Advisor at Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy (IFI) at AUB, he spearheaded a team of researchers in producing qualitative and quantitative analyses, research, and reports on the recent elections, while also advocating for the importance of open public data.
Mr. Jouhari's role as the lead Advisor of the Electoral Lab is another testament to his expertise. Under his guidance, the lab published two research papers on the expatriates and the Sunni community voting trends in the 2022 elections, in collaboration with the Friedrich Naumann Foundation and the Issam Fares Institute. He also oversees the Data Liberation Project, which aims to convert, cross-link, and publicly publish the previous Lebanese parliamentary election results in a machine-readable format.
Mr. Jouhari is also an instructor of migration, international affairs, diplomacy, and US foreign policy at USJ and LAU. He holds an MA in Political Studies from the American University of Beirut and a BA in Journalism from the Lebanese American University. In 2019, he completed a postgraduate US security and foreign policy program with the State Department of Study of US Institutions.
Munira Khayyat is an anthropologist whose research revolves around life in war, intimate genealogies of empire, and theory from the South. Her first book, A Landscape of War: Ecologies of Resistance and Survival in South Lebanon (University of California Press 2022) examines resistant ecologies in a world of perennial warfare. Drawing on long-term fieldwork in frontline villages along Lebanon’s southern border with Israel, she examines war not only as a place of death and destruction, but also necessarily, as an environment of living.
Khayyat was a Member of the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (2018-2019). Before joining NYUAD, she taught at the American University in Cairo (2013-2023) and the American University of Beirut (2011-2013). She holds a PhD in Cultural Anthropology from Columbia University (2013), an MPhil in Social Anthropology from Cambridge University (1998) and a BA in history (1997) from the American University of Beirut.
Professor of Political Science and Director of the Institute of Political Science at Saint Joseph University – Beirut; holder of a PhD in Political Science from the University of Paris I – Sorbonne, and a CAPES in Philosophy and Psychology from the Faculty of Pedagogy at the Lebanese University; author of many publications and research articles. Representative of the President of the Republic at the Permanent Council of the Francophonie.
Professor Kiwan was advisor to the Minister of National Education and Fine Arts 1991-1992 and to the Minister of Culture and Higher Education 1992-1996. She was appointed as expert in many programs of the World Bank and UNESCO. In 2007, she was nominated member of the United Nations University Council until 2013.
Professor Kiwan is nominated by UNESCO member of the senior experts group in charge of revisiting the Report of Jacques Delors on "Education in the 21 century”. She is also member of the Senior advisory experts Committee of the program MOST at UNESCO.
Sensitive to human rights and women rights, she has a lot of articles on these issues and is representative of Lebanon in the Executive Board of the Arab Women Organization. Her priorities in action and research are the following topics: civil society, political parties, pressure groups, political culture and gender issues.
Taher Labadi is a researcher at the French Institute for the Near East (IFPO) in Jerusalem. His work in political economy examines the entanglements of capitalism, colonialism, and resistance in Palestine and the Near East. Through the study of labor governance, agrarian policies, and special economic zones, he highlights how economic structures are shaped by power relations and historical contingencies. More broadly, his research critically investigates the ways economic discourses, institutions, and practices emerge, circulate, and are contested, offering a reflection on the power dynamics that shape economic thought and action in contexts of domination and struggle.
Daniel Meier received his PhD in political science from the Graduate Institute in Geneva and his Habilitation (HDR) in political science from the Sciences Po Grenoble-UGA. He recently won a Junior-Professor Chair at Sciences Po Grenoble leading a research program on the Geopolitics of Borders in the Middle East. Since 2001, he conducted extensive fieldwork researches in Lebanon, Syria, Cyprus and Iraq. Member of the Association of Borderland Studies, “regional editor” for the Journal of Borderlands Studies, his scientific interest focuses on identity and spatial issues, with a special dedication for border conflicts and borderland issues in the Middle East. His last monograph (in English) titled Shaping Lebanon’s Borderlands: Armed Resistance and International Intervention in South Lebanon (IB Tauris, 2016). He is also the editor of In-between border spaces in the Levant (Routledge, 2020) and co-editor with Rosita Di Peri of Mediterranean in (dis)order: Space, Power and Identity (Michigan U Press, 2023).
Anna Nardone is the Project Officer of the TOMidEast Summer School 11th Edition - 2025. She holds a Master's Degree in International Security Studies, obtained under a dual degree system between the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies and the University of Trento.
Tamara Taher was the Project Officer of the TOMidEast Summer School 10th Edition - 2023. She has attained a Ph.D in "Social and Political Change" at the Universities of Turin and Florence, Italy.
