Researcher
Lee Seymour is an associate professor at the Université de Montréal and member of the CÉRIUM — Centre d'études et de recherches internationales and of the CEPSI — Centre d'études sur la paix et la sécurité internationale. His research interests include civil wars, international security and violence in politics. He has published in several academic journals, including Journal of Peace Research, International Security, European Journal of International Relations, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Critical African Studies, Perspectives on Politics and International Peacekeeping. He is currently leading a research project on the politics of foreign military training in fragile states, funded by…
Co-director | Climate Change and the Environment
Sarah E. Sharma is an Assistant Professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. Her research examines how power, politics and economics shapes environmental policy and its outcomes at transnational, national and subnational scales. Her work has been published in various academic and media outlets, including the Review of International Political Economy, International Affairs, New Political Economy, Urban Geography, Policy Options and The Conversation, amongst others. Before joining uOttawa, Dr. Sharma held a position at the University of Victoria and a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Toronto; prior to her doctoral studies, she worked as…
Collaborator
Michael Shurkin is the Director of Global Programs at 14 North Strategies and the founder and President of Shurbros Global Strategies. He works on security in West Africa (Sahel), but also on European and American defence strategies, force structures, security assistance and institutions. Previously, he worked for RAND, where he was a senior policy analyst, and for the CIA, where he was a policy analyst. He holds a PhD in history from Yale University and studied at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS).
Collaborator
Since graduating in 1979, Moustapha Soumaré has had over 40 years of extensive experience in several policy, management and leadership positions of increasing responsibility both in his country and at international level in several countries across Africa, Europe and the UN HQ in the USA. Moustapha Soumaré is currently member of the Board of Directors of the Peace Operations Training Institute (POTI). From 2015 to 2020 he served as the Deputy Special Representative (Political) for the UN Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS). From 2012 to 2015 he was the Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General for the…
Emerging Scholar
Arthur Stein holds a PhD in political science from the Université de Montréal, under the co-direction of Marie-Joelle Zahar and Lee J. M. Seymour. His doctoral research focuses on whether and how the publicity of external support for rebels influences their use of violence against civilians during civil wars. More broadly, his research focuses on the transnational dimensions of civil conflict and violence against civilians. He is mainly interested in internal wars in the Middle East and Africa. Prior to his doctoral studies, he obtained a master's degree in political science from the Institut d'études politiques de Strasbourg (France). He…
Emerging Scholar
Katerina Sviderska is a Master's candidate in Political Science at the Université de Montréal under the supervision of Magdalena Dembińska. Her research focuses on historical myths in identity construction and their use in processes of legitimizing genocidal violence in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. More broadly, she is interested in the politics of memory and nation-building in Eastern Europe. A member of the Ukrainian Studies Chair at the University of Ottawa, Katerina is also active with several Ukrainian human rights and cultural protection organizations. She regularly travels to the field, and speaks Ukrainian, Russian, French, English and…
Collaborator
Thierry Tardy is Director of the Research Division at the NATO Defense College in Rome. Previously he held senior research and management positions at the EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) in Paris, the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), and the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris. His fields of expertise include NATO’s policy and adaptation, the European Union Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), NATO-EU relations, the politics of crisis management, UN peace operations, and French security and defense policy. He has published six books and more than 100 articles or book chapters. His most recent book is…
Emerging Scholar
Ludwine Tchatat currently works as a scientific advisor at the National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy (NCCHPP). She holds a master's degree and a bachelor's degree with honours in political science from the Université de Montréal. She conducted research for her dissertation on the impact of rebel victories in civil conflicts on the improvement of socio-economic conditions of the population. Her work was supervised by Professor Théodore Mclauchlin with whom she also worked as a research assistant on projects related to military training and capacity building.
Emerging Scholars
Benjamin Toubol is a doctoral student in the Department of Political Science at Université Laval. His thesis focuses on the fragmentation and hybrid governance of armed groups in political competition in Northern Iraq. More specifically, his research focuses on the influence of non-state groups in Iraqi Kurdistan and their legitimacy in delegating violence to the population. Holder of a master's degree from the Institut Français de Géopolitique, he conducted several research fields in Iraq between 2017 and 2023. With a degree in literary Arabic studies, he has lived in Tunisia and several Middle Eastern countries. He has also worked for…
Emerging Scholar
Vincent Tourret is a PhD student under the supervision of Professor Justin Massie at the Department of Political Science of the University of Quebec in Montreal. He holds a Master's degree in International Relations from the University of Paris II Assas and in History from the University of Paris IV. He was a research fellow at the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique from 2018 to 2022, where he remains a research associate. His work has focused on the "techno-operational" analysis of armed conflicts, which consists in assessing the impact of doctrinal and capability innovations on military apparatuses, at the level…
