Academic staff

Omer is a transdisciplinary scholar of disaster and conflict, interested in how people imagine and claim their worlds in the wake of colonial rule and environmental ruin while in the shadows of empire. Questioning disciplinary norms within disaster studies and the carceral logics of South Asia, he explores these ideas in the mountain borderlands of the disputed territory of Kashmir and its continuity with Northern Pakistan. Omer works alongside international development, humanitarian, and human rights organizations, linking research with policy, practice, and activism.

Sabah is an interdisciplinary global health researcher committed to social justice. Her research topics include preparedness and response to public health emergencies, labour exploitation and migrant workers' health, and palliative care. She was a postdoctoral researcher at King's College London in global health palliative care within R4HC-MENA. She co-founded organisations aiming at empowering and supporting women and 'minorities' in science and academia and is a trustee for an NGO in global health and development.

Antoine Burgard is a senior lecturer in contemporary history of humanitarianism. He holds a PhD from Université Lyon 2 and Université du Québec A Montréal. Previously a postdoctoral fellow of the Fondation pour la Mémoire de la Shoah in Paris and the Fondation Claude Levy in Strasbourg, he is currently leading a ESRC New Investigator award (2025-2028) on age and border policing ('Who is a child? Determining age in British and French border policing, 1918 to the present'). His research and supervision interests broadly include children and young people in situations of conflict and displacement, history of migration and border policing, and genocides.

Nimesh's research concerns the interplay between disasters, development and democratic politics with a particular attention to the possibilities and challenges facing participatory and accountability initiatives in disaster contexts. He is currently examining the role of youth led activism in constructing alternative narratives of care, accountability and justice for labour migrants impacted by the Covid19 pandemic in Nepal. His PhD research (from LSE) used ethnographic and interview data to examine the politics of citizen centric governance following the 2015 Nepal earthquakes.

Larissa is Professor of Humanitarian and Conflict Studies. She is a scholar and practitioner with over two decades of experience at the intersection of research, policy, and practice related to humanitarianism, conflict, and peacebuilding. Her research examines the causes of and responses to violence against conflict interveners, such as aid workers and peacebuilders, the role of data and technology in humanitarian settings, and ways to make intervention more effective, ethical, and responsive to local needs and context.

Ayham holds a PhD in business and management, MSc in management for business excellence, and BSc in agriculture engineering. In his PhD project, he supported two UK case studies in evaluating and overcoming the operational challenges associated with engaging spontaneous volunteers during emergencies. Ayham has diverse experience including quality management, HR, and change management in the non-for-profit and commercial sector.

Jessica's teaching centres on histories of humanitarianism and war and conflict with a focus on displacement. Her current research interests lie in the historical sociology of camp formation. This traces the concepts and themes which underpin modern forms of incarceration such as refugee camps and linkages to the camps of the past. She is also interested in the pedagogy of humanitarianism examining how we teach difficult subjects related to violence conflict and displacement. In particular she's researching the value of student research visits to conflict affected societies.

Kirsten undertook her role in HCRI in January 2014. Prior to this, she was a Teaching Fellow in International Development at the Global Development at the University of Manchester. Kirsten completed her PhD in 2012, analysing the causes of post-war violence and crime in El Salvador. Her current research builds on from her PhD by examining urban violence and its humanitarian consequences.

Rubina's areas of interest are anthropology of violence and reconstruction, medical anthropology with a special focus on social suffering and mental illness, and the study of lived Islam in South Asia and the UK. Her doctoral work examined moral and material 'reconstruction' of life after an episode of ethnic violence in Gujarat, Western India in 2002.

Previously, Patrick was an Assistant Professor in Global Sustainable Development at the University of Warwick and a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at SOAS University of London. His research explores the political economy of violence, conflict, and development, primarily focusing on Southeast Asia, specifically Myanmar’s borderlands with China, India, and Thailand. He has also conducted work for the UK Government, the World Bank, The Asia Foundation, UNRISD, Conciliation Resources, and NIS, focusing on conflict resolution and peacebuilding.

Pesh is a global health expert, clinical epidemiologist, and emergency nurse specialist with extensive experience in emergency care, implementation science, and outbreak response. Previously, she held academic and leadership roles at Makerere University in Uganda. Her research focuses on low-resource emergency care, epidemic and pandemic preparedness, health workforce development and contextually appropriate interventions to strengthen emergency care systems. She has held frontline, coordination and leadership roles in Uganda’s COVID-19, mpox and Ebolavirus disease responses, including vaccination coordination, emergency medical services and national case management structures. She is Principal Investigator of EMERGE, focused on emergency and critical care nursing capacity, and SHIELD, an initiative advancing epidemic and pandemic preparedness in emergency care in sub-Saharan Africa.

Stephanie focuses on vital mobilities that impact life chances. Her research examines how medical goods such as blood, saline and oxygen move from points of production to points of care and how such geographically dispersed supply chains can be made more buoyant in a changing climate. Care for the climate and communities is central to her work. Stephanie's first book is Under the Weather: Reimagining Mobility in the Climate Crisis (Mcgill-Queen's University Press, 2022).

Kristina's focus is on both academic and policy-oriented research, specializing in understanding how interventions shape and are shaped by local contexts, particularly within the realm of everyday economic interactions. She draws on prior research experience with the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), World Food Programme (WFP), Danish Refugee Council (DRC) and German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ). Her PhD explores the implications of humanitarian cash and voucher assistance on host-refugee relations in Lebanon.

Birte joined the academic staff of HCRI in 2016. She is the Editor of the HCRI Policy Brief Series and was previously Assistant Editor of the Taylor and Francis journal Peacebuilding. Her two recent, co-edited books reflect her general research interest in the intersection of economics and peace and conflict studies and humanitarianism (Economies of Peace, Routledge, 2019), as well as her interest in the ethics of conducting research in conflict-affected societies (The Companion to Peace and Conflict Fieldwork, Palgrave, 2021).