Chanwoong BAEK

PhD, Columbia University
Assistant Professor, International Relations/Political Science with a courtesy appointment in the Anthropology and Sociology Department and Academic Director of NORRAG

Before joining the Graduate Institute, Chanwoong Baek was Postdoctorol Fellow at the University of Oslow’s Faculty of Educational Sciences. His current research critically assesses the claims made about “evidence-based policymaking” from a comparative and international perspective. In particular, he examines the social dynamics of legitimacy and power on the local, national and global levels, employing both quantitative and qualitative methods.
 

Kristen MCNEILL

PhD, Brown University
Assistant Professor, Anthropology and Sociology, and Pictet Chair in Finance and Development

Kristen McNeill’s research interests centre on social drivers of economic and financial behaviours, gender inequalities, and international development, using a mix of quali¬tative and quantitative methods. She completed a PhD in Sociology at Brown University, as well as an MPA from New York University and a BA from McGill University. Her cur¬rent research in the context of micro-lending examines how nominally gender-neutral processes governing access to financial resources can be profoundly gendered in practice.

Neha MISHRA

PhD Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne
Assistant Professor, International Law

Neha Mishra was previously Lecturer in Law at the Australian National University and Postdoctoral Fellow at the National University of Singapore. Her PhD thesis, which investigates how international trade agreements apply to cross-border data flows, was awarded the 2019 Harold Luntz Graduate Research Prize for the best thesis in Melbourne Law School, and the 2020 University of Melbourne Chancellor’s Prize for Excellence in the PhD Thesis. Neha has also held visiting research positions at the Max Planck Institute in Luxembourg and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Neha is a dual qualified lawyer and has previously worked with top-tier law firms in India and the UK.

Christiana PARREIRA

PhD, Stanford University
Assistant Professor, International Relations/Political Science

Christiana Parreira’s research focuses on the role of local political institutions and actors in governance, looking primarily at post-conflict contexts in the Middle East and North Africa. Her forthcoming book project examines how local governments and elections facilitated predatory state-building practices in Lebanon. In other research, she examines determinants of governance quality and distributive outcomes in Lebanon, Iraq, and elsewhere in the Global South. Before joining the Graduate Institute, she served as a Postdoctoral Associate in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University and a Predoctoral Associate at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Middle East Initiative.

Alice PIRLOT

PhD, Louvain University
Assistant Professor, International Law

Alice Pirlot will be joining the Geneva Graduate Institute in February 2023. She was previously a Senior Research Fellow in Law at the Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation and a Research Fellow of the National Belgian Fund for Scientific Research (FNRS) at the University of Louvain. Alice’s main expertise lies at the inter¬section between tax, environmental, EU and international trade law. Her publica¬tions cover a wide range of topics, including carbon border adjustment measures, the taxation of the energy sector, and the interactions between tax policy and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Maria Neus TORBISCO-CASALS

PhD, Pompeu Fabra University
Adjunct Professor, International Law

Neus Torbisco-Casals is Senior Research Fellow at the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy and a faculty member at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights. She is also Associate Professor of Law at Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona. She has been a Postdoctoral Researcher at Queen’s University, Canada, and the London School of Economics, UK; a Hauser Fellow at New York University School of Law; and a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School. Neus’s primary research areas are human rights, cultural diversity and identity claims; minority and indigenous peoples’ rights; antidiscrimination law and policy; and gender and race equality.

Michelle D. WEITZEL

PhD, The New School for Social Research
Assistant Professor, International Relations/Political Science  

At The New School, Michelle Weitzel trained in comparative politics and international relations and specialised in the political systems of the Middle East and North Africa. Prior to joining the Institute, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Basel (2020–2022). Her research centres on violence, conflict, critical security studies, and affect and emotions in politics. Her current book project, entitled “Sound Politics: Affective Governance and the State”, draws on case studies in Palestine, Israel, Algeria, France and Morocco. In other research, she looks at the intersection of time, perception and mobility.

Umut YILDIRIM

PhD, University of Cambridge
Assistant Professor, Anthropology and Sociology

Umut Yildirim is an anthropologist working at the intersection of political, medical and environmental anthropology with an ethnographic perspective from the Armenian/Kurdish region in Turkey. Her research is available on platforms such as Jadaliyya (2022), Current Anthropology (2021, 2023 forthcoming), and Anthropological Theory (2019). Previously, she was affiliated with the Center for Near Eastern Studies, UCLA; the Institute for Social and Cultural Anthropology at Freie Universität Berlin; and the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICI) Berlin. She also taught political anthropology at Bilgi, Bogaziçi and Sabanci Universities in Istanbul, Turkey.