GLOBAL YOUNG ACADEMY - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Executive Director of Partnerships for Development at the Royal Scientific Society
- Member of the GYA
Dr Hussam Hussein is the Executive Director of Partnerships for Development at the Royal Scientific Society (RSS) of Jordan, and a Research Associate in Water Diplomacy at the University of Oxford. His research focuses on the role of discourses in shaping water policies in the Middle East, on transboundary water governance and critical hydropolitics, and on issues related to the political economy of water. Before joining RSS, Dr Hussein worked as a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Oxford, at the World Bank as a private sector development analyst, and at the European Parliament.
He holds a PhD in international development from the University of East Anglia, studied Diplomacy and International Relations at the University of Trieste (Gorizia), Middle Eastern studies at SOAS - University of London, and European Interdisciplinary Studies at the College of Europe.
Dr Shalini S. Arya is currently faculty at Food Engineering and Technology Department Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai. She works in the area of Indian traditional foods, in particular cereal based staple foods such as chapatti, phulka, thepla, khakhara, thalipeeth, naan and kulcha. Her work is focused on various aspects such as product development and standardisation, nutritional improvement and characterisation, chemistry and technology, staling, extension of shelf life using various technologies (MAP, oxygen scavenger, chemical, freezing etc) for these products, all of which would have far reaching significance in improving public health in India and that too based on the resources that are locally available and food staples that are regularly consumed by the locals. She has more than 60 publications in international journals of high repute. Her work on chapatti was recognised during international and national conferences and was awarded with first prize under cereal category. She has also developed an interest on utilisation of food industry waste into value added products, bioactive peptides from underutilised plant seeds, development of low glycemic index foods, functional food products from peanuts and quality improvement of gluten free flat bread of which many of them were recognized and awarded during international and national conferences. India unfortunately becoming capital country for diabetes and cardiovascular affected population and thus developing cost effective product technologies is very necessary. Dr Shalini and her research group have developed Indian traditional food products having low glycaemic index using low cost and locally available ingredients. For this reason her work was internationally recognised by International Life Science Institute (ILSI) USA who awarded her prestigious Malaspina International Award- 2015. In addition to this Dr. Shalini has been helping multinational food industries for developing traditional food product technologies for e.g. chapatti, paratha, bhaji, instant food mixes. She has helped industries for developing low glycaemic index formulation, high soluble fiber paratha premixses, high protein atta premix and other healthy low cost nutritious premixes. Thus, Dr Shalini is indirectly contributing towards improving public health of Indian population.
Job Titles:
- Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the University of Heidelberg
- Science Manager
Science manager and historian, Ulrike Albrecht is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the University of Heidelberg, Germany, and the former head of the Department for Strategic Planning and External Relations at the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Bonn, Germany. She earned graduate degrees in History and English and a PhD in History from the University of Göttingen. Since July 2001, she has been the head of the Department for Strategic Planning and External Relations at the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. As such, she is also in charge of public relations, cooperation with national and international funding agencies and research organisations. Dr Albrecht is the vice chair of the American Friends of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and used to be the chair of the Board of Trustees of the University of Heidelberg. In 2017 she joined the Council of the Leibniz University in Hanover.
Job Titles:
- GYA Member
- Lawyer
- Member of the GYA
Dr. Cynthia Farid is a lawyer and legal scholar. Having completed her bar in the United Kingdom and Bangladesh, she graduated with advanced degrees from Cornell Law School (LLM) and the University of Wisconsin Law School (SJD).She is currently a Global Academic Fellow at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) Faculty of Law. Dr. Farid's research interests include socio-legal history, constitutional and administrative law, law and development (with a focus on South Asia), and knowledge production processes in the Global South. Prior to joining HKU, Dr Farid was practicing as an Advocate of the Supreme Court of Bangladesh and had been working with the Human Rights Forum Bangladesh, a coalition of 20 human rights NGOs, to support its engagement with the United Nations Committee against Torture and the Universal Periodic Review. She is also the organizer of two International Research Collaboratives of the Law and Society Association on South Asian Legal Systems and Scholars in the Global South respectively, that have brought together scholars from around the globe to work on collaborative projects.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor
- GYA Member
- Member of the GYA
Dr. Hiba Baroud is an associate professor and the associate chair in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Vanderbilt University. She holds secondary appointments in Computer Science and Earth and Environmental Science. Her research is at the intersection of data analytics and risk and resilience modeling. Her group develops and applies methods founded in statistical learning, network models, and decision analysis to evaluate infrastructure performance during disasters. She is particularly interested in uncertain and dynamic interdependencies across multiple systems (infrastructure, humans, environment). Applications are focused on smart cities, developing countries, and Arctic communities. She is the co-chair of the Risk and Resilience Measurements Committee of the Infrastructure Resilience Division in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). She serves on the editorial board of the ASCE Journal of Infrastructure Systems and as Associate Editor of the ASCE Natural Hazards Review. Hiba is the recipient of the 2019 Global Voices Fellowship, the 2020 National Science Foundation Early CAREER award, and the 2022 National Academy of Sciences Arab-American Frontiers Fellowship.
Dr. Karin Carmit Yefet is an Associate Professor and a senior lecturer at the University of Haifa's Faculty of Law. She holds a Master's degree and doctorate from Yale Law School as a Fulbright, Fischman and HSBC scholar, and an L.L.B. and LL.M. from Bar-Ilan University, both summa cum laude and first in her class.
Dr. Yefet's award-winning scholarship on family law and feminist legal theory has been published in leading journals and focuses on the impact of religion on women's lives from feminist, comparative, and constitutional perspectives. She has also written extensively on issues pertaining to Orientalism, the military, and female sexuality, research for which she received some of the highest honors awarded to junior scholars.
Dr. Yefet clerked in the Israeli Supreme Court, served as a senior adviser to the State Committee for investigating Israel's adherence to International Humanitarian Law, and advises the Israeli Ministry of Justice and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs on women's rights issues. She is also a member of the Yale Leadership Society and the Editor-In-Chief of the Online Haifa Law Journal.
Job Titles:
- GYA Member
- Member of the GYA
Professor Kirkup holds a doctorate from the University of Toronto Faculty of Law (SJD 2017), where he studied as a 2013 Trudeau Scholar and a Social Sciences Research Council of Canada Graduate Scholar. He also studied at Yale Law School (LLM 2012), the University of Ottawa Faculty of Law (JD 2009), and the College of the Humanities at Carleton University (BHum 2006).
In 2010-2011, Professor Kirkup served as a law clerk to the Honourable Madam Justice Louise Charron at the Supreme Court of Canada. He also taught advanced constitutional law in the Faculty of Law at Western University and worked at McCarthy Tétrault LLP in Toronto. He was called to the Bar of Ontario in 2010.
Professor Kirkup is a frequent media contributor who is committed to making legal issues accessible to the public. He has published editorials on topics including same-sex marriage, solitary confinement, judicial complaints, sex work, and HIV non-disclosure. He also regularly appears on international, national, and local media platforms.
Professor Kirkup has appeared before the House of Commons of Canada's Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights as an expert witness on the criminalization of HIV non-disclosure and sex work. He has appeared before the Standing Senate of Canada's Committee on Human Rights as an expert witness on human rights in federal prisons. He has written expert reports on LGBTQ human rights issues in policing and corrections settings for Canada's Office of the Correctional Investigator and the Ontario Human Rights Commission. He also served as the principal investigator and author of Best Practices in Policing and LGBTQ Communities in Ontario. Professor Kirkup also served on the Board of Directors of MAX: Ottawa's Health Connection for Guys into Guys.
Job Titles:
- Co - Chair / Italy
- Member of Executive Committe
- Member of the GYA
Job Titles:
- Professor at the University of Ottawa
Howard Alper is a distinguished University Professor at the University of Ottawa. The basic research Alper has been pursuing encompasses organic and inorganic chemistry, with potential applications in the pharmaceutical, petrochemical and commodity chemical industries.
He has served as Chair of the Government of Canada's Science, Technology and Innovation Council, as Chair of the Board of Governors of the Council of Canadian Academies, on the Science Advisory Committee of the WEF and was IAP Co-Chair (2007-2013).
Job Titles:
- Senior Communications Officer
Job Titles:
- Research Award from SAAS - Spanish Association for American Studies
Job Titles:
- GYA Member
- Member of the GYA
- Senior Lecturer in American Literature
Josep M. Armengol is Senior Lecturer in American Literature and Gender Studies at the University of Castilla-La Mancha. He is the author of Masculinities in Black and White: Manliness and Whiteness in (African) American Literature (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and Richard Ford and the Fiction of Masculinities (Lang, 2010) and (co-)editor of Alternative Masculinities for a Changing World(Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), Embodying Masculinities: Towards a History of the Male Body in U.S. Culture and Literature (Lang, 2013), Queering Iberia: Iberian Masculinities at the Margins (Lang, 2012), Men in Color: Racialized Masculinities in U.S. Literature and Cinema (Cambridge Scholars, 2011), and Debating Masculinity (Men's Studies Press, 2009). Josep is currently also directing a research project on aging masculinities in contemporary European literatures and cinemas: www.mascage.eu
Job Titles:
- Professor of Tropical Medicine at the Nuffield Department
Kevin Marsh is a Professor of Tropical Medicine at the Nuffield Department of Medicine. He has a broad research interest in child health in the tropics, with a particular focus in the immune epidemiology of malaria. From 1989 to 2014 he directed the KEMRI Wellcome Programme in Kenya.
Professor Marsh has furthermore taken a particular interest in the development of Science in Africa. He is currently seconded for 50% of his time as senior adviser to the African Academy of Sciences. He is chair of the WHO Malaria policy advisory committee (MPAC) and a member of many global health advisory groups.
Job Titles:
- Senior Media & IT Officer
Sweden-born Linda Nordling, who started her journey as a journalist in the UK before moving to South Africa, specialises in African science policy, education and development. She was the founding editor of Research Africa and writes for SciDev.Net, Nature, The Times Higher Education, The Guardian and many others. She also functions as an adviser in science communication (mainly Africa, and African-related health topics).
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor at the Faculty of Philosophy
Lisa Herzog is associate professor at the Faculty of Philosophy and the Center for Philosophy, Politics and Economics of the University of Groningen. She studied philosophy, economics, political science and modern history at the universities of Munich (LMU) and Oxford. Between 2008 and 2011 she wrote her doctoral thesis, entitled "Inventing the Market. Smith, Hegel, and Political Theory" (OUP 2013, paperback 2016) as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University. Since then, she has worked at the universities of St. Gallen, Leuven, Frankfurt, Stanford, and Technical University Munich. She works at the intersection of political philosophy and economics, focusing on the history of political and economic ideas, normative questions around markets (especially financial markets), ethics in organizations, and political epistemology. She also writes for a broader public and participates in public debates about the ethics of finance, social justice, and workplace democracy.
Luisa F. Echeverría-King holds a PhD in Education from Universidad de Murcia and is researcher on issues related to international higher education, science diplomacy and the development of science, technology and innovation capacities in Latin America. Head of Diplomacy and International Scientific Cooperation at Universidad Simón Bolívar, in Colombia. In 2020, takes a Course on Science Diplomacy in India; she is also a fellow from the Warsaw School of Science Diplomacy and the Brazilian School of Science and Innovation Diplomacy. Mashav fellow for a course on New Pedagogies in Higher Education (2016). Fellow of the AAAS and TWAS for a course on Science Diplomacy with a perspective on Southern countries and DAAD-fellow for a course on Management of Internationalization. Executive Director of Diplocientifica. Vice-President of the Colombian National Chapter of the Organization for Women in Science in the Developing World from UNESCO (OWSD). Member of the Liaison Committee for the Regional Focal Point for Latin America and the Caribbean of the International Science Council. She has participated in the construction of the national policy for the internationalization of STI and science diplomacy in Colombia during the year 2022. Member of the Global Young Academy since 2023.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Global Governance
Maria Ivanova is Associate Professor of Global Governance and Director of the Center for Governance and Sustainability at the John W. McCormack Graduate School of Policy & Global Studies, University of Massachusetts Boston. Professor Ivanova is a Senior Policy Advisor and was a Partner of Ecologic Institute Berlin. Her work focuses on global environmental governance, the performance of international organisations, in particular the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) and the role of the United States in international environmental affairs.
She was a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and a Board member of the UN University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS). In 2015, she was awarded an Andrew Carnegie fellowship.
Mohamed Hassan is a mathematician and Dean of the School of Mathematical Sciences at the University of Khartoum. He has published articles in various fields, mostly applying mathematics in the physical sciences. He is President of the Academy of Sciences for the Developing World (TWAS) which he served before as its Founding Executive Director 1983-2011. Hassan is also a former Co-Chair of the IAP (InterAcademy Partnership) as well as former President of the Network of African Science Academies (NASAC). He is also a past President of the African Academy of Sciences (AAS).
Job Titles:
- in September Group Member
- Member of the GYA
In September group member Monika Kędra gave a presentation on inclusion, diversity and equity at the GYA online event "Young and Global - A perspective on today's challenges in science" together. This event was part of the Science Summit of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA77). In her presentation, she looked at how the GYA aims to assure diversity, equity, and inclusion within its own network, and to promote these values in academia and outside. Read more about the session and watch the full presentation here.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Economics at NUST
- Member of the GYA
Dr. Ali is an Associate Professor of Economics at NUST and Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany. He has 10+ years of experience in advanced data analysis and 4 years of teaching experience at UG and PhD level. He holds a PhD from Germany in Economics of Innovation. He is also a Google Certified Data Analyst. He has published 15+ research papers in reputed journals with 400+ citations on Google Scholar. He was the recipient of the "Best Researcher Award" for 2020 at NUST, Islamabad. He has also received prestigious scholarships/fellowships in past including Czech Government Scholarship for Developing Countries (for Masters in Economics and Finance), DFG Scholarship (for Ph.D. studies in Germany), and Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship for Post-Doctoral research. He has supervised/co-supervised 12 MS theses at FSU Jena, and NUST Islamabad. He was recently selected as a member of Global Young Academy (of scientists) for five years. He is also the editor of the Department's Newsletter. He regularly reviews papers for prestigious journals such as World Development, BMC Public Health, PLoS One etc. His current research interests include National Innovation Systems, University-Industry Collaboration and Public Health.
Job Titles:
- President of the National Science and Technology
Narong Sirilertworakul is the President of the National Science and Technology Development Agency in Thailand. For the last twenty-five years, Dr Sirilertworakul has been engaged in driving science and technology for a better future of Thailand.
Patricia Obo-Nai is the first Ghanaian female CEO of Vodafone Ghana. Prior to her appointment, she served in other directorship roles, including Chief Technology Director. She has 22 years of experience in Information Technology and Telecommunications, and is a member of the Ghana Institution of Engineers and of the Executive Women Network. Mrs Obo-Nai has received several awards, including the Best Female Technologist Award at the annual Ghana Telecom Awards in June 2012, and was selected as one of the 100 most inspiring women leaders at Vodafone in the year 2018.
Princess Sumaya is an avid archaeologist and follows, on behalf of her father HRH Prince El Hassan, and in her own right, the work of the British Institute in Amman for Archaeological Research and the Council for British Research in the Levant.
Job Titles:
- Co - Chair / Ghana
- Member of Executive Committe
Bruce Alberts, a prominent biochemist with a strong commitment to the improvement of science and education, was awarded the National Medal of Science by President Barack Obama in 2014.
He served as Editor-in-Chief of Science (2009-2013) and as one of the first three United States Science Envoys (2009-2011). Now he is the Chancellor's Leadership Chair in Biochemistry and Biophysics for Science and Education at the University of California, San Francisco, to which he returned after serving two six-year terms as the president of the National Academy of Sciences.
Job Titles:
- Professor Emeritus of Physics at the Federal University of Rio De Janeiro
Luiz Davidovich is Professor Emeritus of Physics at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ). He received his PhD at the University of Rochester in 1976, and has since worked in quantum optics and quantum information. His major contributions are in the fields of decoherence, entanglement, laser theory and quantum metrology. He has analysed in detail the role of the environment in the dynamics of quantum coherence and quantum entanglement, and also in quantum metrology, contributing with theoretical developments and proposals for experiments, which have been performed in Europe and by his own group in Brazil. Luiz is a former President of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences (2016-2022) and was the is Secretary-General of TWAS until 2022. He also acted as Secretary-General of the 4th Brazilian National Conference on Science, Technology and Innovation for a Sustainable Development. He is a foreign associate to the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America and a fellow of the Optical Society of America and of the American Physical Society.
Helmut Schwarz is a highly decorated German organic chemist. He has been a professor of chemistry at the Technische Universität Berlin since 1978. Professor Schwarz is a former President of the Humboldt Foundation (AvH) (2008-2018) and a Board member of the Leopoldina since 2010 and served in numerous leading positions of important science organizations, including as Vice-President of the German Research Foundation (DFG) (2001-2007) and as Vice-President of the BBAW (1998-2003).
Job Titles:
- Assistant Professor of Physics in the Department
- Immediate past Co - Chair / United States
- Member of Executive Committe
- Member of the GYA
Prosper Ngabonziza is an Assistant Professor of Physics in the Department of Physics & Astronomy of the Louisiana State University. After receiving a Bachelor of Science degree (BSc. in Physics) from the University of Rwanda (former National University of Rwanda), he completed with cum laude, in 2010, a postgraduate diploma in mathematical sciences at African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), under the University of Cape Town in South Africa. In 2012, he completed a Master's degree with cum laude in experimental physics from the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. He received in 2013 the S2A3 Bronze Medal awarded by the Southern Africa association for advancement of science to the best student who did a most meritorious master dissertation in a science department in South Africa. In 2016, he completed a PhD in engineering physics from the University of Twente, in The Netherlands. His PhD project was on topological insulators (TIs). He was combining thin film growth, characterizations and quantum transport studies of TIs. From October 2016, he was a Postdoc at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research in Stuttgart-Germany, in the department of solid-state quantum electronics. His research at Max Planck focused on quantum matter heterostructures fabricated from complex oxides with the goal to explore novel phenomena in devices fabricated from such heterostructures. After 6 years at Max Planck Institute, he joined the faculty at the Louisiana State University in 2022.
He is actively involved in the The African Light Source (AfLS) project, as a Trustee and Deputy Chair of the Executive Committee of the African light source Foundation. The AfLS project is working towards building a synchrotron light source on the African continent that will contribute significantly to the African science renaissance.
In June 2019, he has been nominated as a Fellow to the Rwanda Academy of Science. Furthermore, he has been selected for a membership in the Global Young Academy for a period of 5 years beginning in June 2020. He served on the 2021/2022 Global Young Academy Executive Committee; and currently, he is serving as a Co-Chair of the Global Young Academy (2022/2023).
Job Titles:
- Co - Lead / GYA Member / Co - Lead /
Job Titles:
- Founder of the Worldwide Scout Movement
Suraj is an IAP YPL alumni steering committee member and a founding executive member of the National Young Academy of Nepal. He has participated in Lindau Nobel Laureates Meeting. He has served several high level scientific and steering committees within Inter-academy Partnership, UK Academy of Medical Sciences, International Science Council, International Society of Urban Health, CUGH and so on. Suraj has been contributing to the NIHR Global Health Award committees since 2019. He is a member of the European Society for Pediatric Infectious Disease (ESPID) and works closely with its scientific committee and the official journal i.e. PID Journal. For this work, he received ESPID Distinguished Award for Communication in 2020. He has published 40+ original research articles and global reports.
Job Titles:
- Fellow, 4TU.DeSIRE, Netherlands
Job Titles:
- Co - Chair of the Board of Directors of the Japanese Association for the Advancement of Science
Yuko Harayama is Co-Chair of the Board of Directors of the Japanese Association for the Advancement of Science (JAAS), and a former Executive Member of the Council for Science, Technology and Innovation (CSTI) at the Cabinet Office.