2021 Winter School

Hiruni Nathasha Fernando is a blogger from Sri Lanka. Her background is in Law, International Studies, Strategic Studies and Politics of South Asia from the University of Kelaniya, University of London, and Nanyang Technological University. She was previously a Regional Liaison Officer at the Regional Centre for Strategic Studies in Sri Lanka. Her academic interests are in – Maritime Security, Terrorism and Political violence with an area focus on South Asia. She is fluent in English, Sinhala and French.

Noor Amin Ahmad is a Malaysian Member of Parliament. He is also a member of the Select Committee on Public Infrastructure and Chairman for the Young Parliamentarians Caucus in Malaysian Parliament. Previously, he was a member of Select Committee on Budget and member of steering committee for the Young Parliamentarian Network on the World Bank. Graduated from a local university in Malaysia, he pursue his interest in public policy and gained experiences by working as the Operations and Project Manager with Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs (IDEAS), a prominent think tank in Malaysia, Coordinator at Merdeka Center for Opinion Research for a joint-research project on Islam and Democracy in Malaysia, Communication Officer to the Chief Minister of Selangor State Government, the most developed state in Malaysia, Manager at Centre for Reforms, a think tank founded by the Honorable Mr Anwar Ibrahim and founded his own think tank, Institute for Leadership and Developments Studies (LEAD). Since 2007, he has authored 3 books and translated more than 10 books. Hundreds of his opinion articles on various issues from religion, political- economy, environment, education and governance were published by printed and online media. Since 2007, he often invited to share his thoughts on various issues in several popular television talk show and public forums.

Gulmira Sheryazdanova is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at S. Seifullin Kazakh Agrotechnical University, in Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan. She received her doctorate in 1998 Institute of Philosophy, Academy of Science of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Almati, Kazakhstan. Her research interests include Social Identities: methodological issues, including measurement, Ethnic and civil identities in Kazakhstan, Nation building processes in post-soviet countries, Electronic government as an anticorruption strategy and Parties and party system in Kazakhstan

Altanchimeg Purevsuren is an IT engineer for the ICT center of the General election commission of Mongolia, covering the election automatic systems last 7 years. Before joining The General election commission of Mongolia in 2014, she was working in the government of the capital city of Mongolia. She is a Ph.D. student of Political Science in Mongolia. She had participated in some of the voter turnout projects with NGOs. Such as “election hackathon” in 2019, “voter registration” research project in 2020. These projects still bring good results for voter turnout in the election.Altanchimeg published papers for ensuring the transparency of political parties’ funds and ICT in the election of Mongolia. Currently, she is studying in South Korea by master degree. Her research interests are ICT technology in the election sector /internet voting/, voter education, and political parties fund.

Yoes C. Kenawas is a political scientist with 15 years of experience working on democracy, political parties, subnational politics, and decentralization in Southeast Asia. He is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science at Northwestern University (Evanston, IL) and currently writing his dissertation on the subnational variation of dynastic politics in Indonesia. His research on dynastic politics has been featured in national and international media, including The Economist, Reuters, Al-Jazeera, South China Morning Post, Kompas, and Tempo. He is also interested in two other issues that seem worlds apart: the use of blockchain to improve the quality of democracy and how mystical beliefs influence politicians’ behavior. He believes in the power of comedy in building a mature democracy. He spends his free time developing his podcast and YouTube channels to bridge the gap between academics, policymakers, and the public in Indonesia.

Tusharika Deka is a doctoral researcher in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham. Her research focuses on political violence, new wars and technology. She is the recipient of the Vice- chancellor scholarship for research excellence (International) from the University of Nottingham to pursue her PhD. Currently, she is one of the editors for E- International Relations

Veera Lamichhane has extensive experience in working in the development sector in Nepal, with her main focus being on women and children. Veera led a team of women for the Amar Project at RHEST (Rural Health and Education Service Trust), and made field visits to various districts of Nepal in order to aid access to education, provide financial aid and counsel young girls of school-going age. She then went on to become a Summer Fellow at Daayitwa and worked with the Ministry of Industry to engage with national youth to leverage a movement and involvement of younger generations in the governance of the country. At SAARC, she worked to report on Common Issues of Women in South Asia.

Veera then went on to become an educator at Columbus Int. School, where she was responsible for using modern and dynamic learning teaching methods to show students how to fluently communicate using the English language. She led, motivated, supported and developed students at all levels in order to ensure wholesome growth and knowledge acquisition. At BB Holdings Pvt. Ltd., she worked directly under the Managing Director as a Communications Officer, and oversaw public content and management of company profile, while creating public business profiles of relative companies within the company.

Her work as a Rapporteur at Women’s Alliance for Peace, Justice and Democracy (Sankalpa Nepal) required detailed, accurate reporting of the ‘South Asian Women’s Regional Conference – Weaving the Web’ and aptly working with the team to devise an action plan. She has worked as an Amanuensis for Ms. Chandni Joshi, a Gender Rights and Policy Specialist, assisting in the overall compilation of the book ‘Weaving my South Asian Tapestry’, which is soon to be published.

Veera is currently affiliated with the Centre for South Asian Studies in Nepal as a Researcher, her most recent achievement being a country report on “Disaster Risk Reduction: A Collective Approach from South and Southeast Asia”, published in coalition with Regional Project Energy Security and Climate Change South Asia (RECAP) and Consortium of South Asian Think Tanks (COSATT). She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in International Politics from Middlesex University, London.

Muhammad Saud is a young political researcher based in Southeast Asia. He is the author of studies on youth and political participation. He lectures in Sociology, worked in the development sector (NGOs) and has contributed to a series of youth development projects and particularly on Health and Education, at the grassroots level. He is working with think tanks to promote youth as the main indicator for social change in the democratic society. He started his career from the spirit of volunteerism and was rewarded the Best Volunteer Award from UNESCO partners in Asia. He is currently engaged in funded projects with Indonesian and Malaysian Universities on the Democratic Practice and Youth political participation. He is also associated with national and international forums.

Dini Harmita is a researcher, internationalist and social activist. Find joy in learning, researching, facilitating and writing especially about environmental, social, cultural and political issues. She graduated with a Master Degree from the Graduate School of International Development (GSID) Nagoya University Japan in March 2021 with ADB-JSP Scholarship.

Mukesh Shukla is currently associated with Union Minister of India. He has 10 years working experience of administration in various government institutions like Indian parliament,Ministry of Agriculture,Ministry of water resources, ministry of Finance, Ministry of Fisheries, Animal husbandry and Dairy. He also has his association with several government programs like Unnat Bharat abhiyan , which is run by Indian Institute of Technology along with Ministry of Education.

He is governing body member of Citizens for welfare states,India. Earlier,Mukesh shukla was Secretary in BJYM(BJP youth wing) and in last 10 years , he had taken several responsibilities in local body elections to National elections. He started his career as student activist and lead more than 100’s of student protest and resolved many issues. He has been Organisational secretary in ABVP ( world largest student organisation) and was elected as member of council of Delhi University student union.

Channtha So is a Ph. D student in International Relations at the University of Cambodia. He currently serves as a lecturer in politics and international relations at various universities in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He is interested in political parties, human rights, democracy, and foreign relations. 

Rejene Tan Lakibul is Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, School of Law and Governance, University of San Carlos, Cebu City, Philippines. He earned his bachelor’s degree in Political Science (cum laude) and master’s degree in Public Management and Development from the same University. He was also awarded as the Top Outstanding Political Science Graduate of Batch 2008 of the University of San Carlos.

He currently enjoys teaching Comparative Politics, Public Policy, Constitutional Rights and Philippine Governance, and The Contemporary World. His research interests include environmental governance, democracy and political parties, political philosophy, public management and development, youth and social movements, political communication, and integrity building. He is also a member of the Philippine Society for Public Administration, Philippine Political Science Association, and Analytics Association of the Philippines. Since 2014, Mr. Lakibul is a peer reviewer of Politikon, the official publication of the International Association for Political Science Students.

He has been an Integrity Consultant for the Local Government Integrity Circles (LoGIC) project of the European Union and Konrad Adenauer Stiftung – Philippines (January 2019 – March 2021); Technical Writer for the Integrity Building Stories publication of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung – Philippines (October – December 2020); Researcher for the Purok System Case Study project of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (June 2018 – 2019); Senior Master Trainer of the Fellowship of the 300 of the Centrist Democracy Political Institute (since 2018); Field Supervisor for Citizens’ Satisfaction Index System project of the Department of Interior and Local Government of the Philippines (June 2015 – September 2016); and Leadership Fellow of Konrad Adenauer Stiftung School for Young Politicians / Leaders – Batch 4.

Nargiza Kilichova studied at the Westminster International University in Tashkent, Uzbekistan where she obtained her Bachelor of Arts degree in Commercial Law. Later, she has graduated from the Europa-Institut of Saarland University with the LL.M. degree and a Master of Public Policy from the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy. Nargiza Kilichova worked as an Associate Lecturer at the Westminster International University in Tashkent. She has been a Research Associate of the research group “The Politics of International Law in the Post- Soviet Space” at the IOS. She has also worked as a consultant for the International IDEA on working with the Parliament of Uzbekistan. Her on-going research project focuses on legal aspects of development projects in Central Asia and the Sothern Caucasus.

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