People

Professor Toby Dodge

Centre Director
b.t.dodge@lse.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7955 6176

Robert Lowe

Deputy Director
r.lowe@lse.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7955 6365

Chelsea Milsom

Projects Coordinator
c.milsom@lse.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7955 7038

Emma Pearson

Communications Coordinator
e.pearson@lse.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)20 7955 6553

Sandra Sfeir

Centre Administrator
s.sfeir@lse.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)20 7955 6198

Ian Sinclair

Kuwait Programme Administrator
i.sinclair@lse.ac.uk
Tel: +44(0)20 7955 6639

Ribale Sleiman Haidar

Communications Manager
r.sleiman-haidar@lse.ac.uk 
Tel: +44 (0)20 7955 6250 

Aisha Al-Sarihi, Research Officer

Aisha Al-Sarihi is Research Officer at the Kuwait Programme working on Climate Change in GCC States. Aisha is completing her doctoral thesis at the Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London. 

Dr Valeria Cetorelli, Research Officer

Valeria Cetorelli is currently working on a large-scale mortality and health survey among households displaced by the Islamic State into the Kurdistan Region of Iraq. Her research revolves around the political and social determinants of population health.

Dr Filippo Dionigi, Leverhulme Research Fellow

Filippo Dionigi is researching the impact of the Syrian refugee crisis on Arab statehood from a comparative perspective. In addition, Filippo is leading on a capacity-building project, in collaboration with Tunis University,  to enhance the didactic capacity of Tunis Business School (TBS), on the level of International Relations teaching.

Dr Fatima El-Issawi, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow

Fatima El-Issawi is leading on a collaboration project with the American University of Dubai entitled 'Arab National Media and Politics: Democracy Revisited', looking at changes in media practices in traditional media industries in Morocco and Algeria. 

Dr Aula Hariri, Research Officer

Aula Hariri is Research Officer at the LSE Middle East Centre, currently working on the Historical Sociology of the Middle East. This research builds on her thesis which examined the role of the Iraqi Independence Movement on state formation in Iraq between 1914-1958.

Dr Steffen Hertog, Associate Professor in Comparative Politics

Steffen Hertog is lead researcher on 'The Comparative Political Economy of the MENA Region' project in the Kuwait Programme. He is also Associate Professor in Comparative Politics in the Department of Government. 

Dr Zeynep Kaya, Research Fellow

Zeynep Kaya is Research Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre and Research Officer at the LSE Centre for Women, Peace and Security. She is currently leading a project on responses to internal displacement in Iraqi Kurdistan. 

Dr Courtney Freer, Research Officer

Courtney Freer is Research Officer at the Kuwait Programme. Her research focuses on revising rentier state theory by examining the socio-political role played by Muslim Brotherhood affiliates in the so-called 'super-rentiers' of Kuwait, Qatar, and the UAE.

Dr Cristina Moreno Almeida, Research Officer

Cristina Moreno Almeida is Research Officer working on the project ‘Personalised Media and Participatory Culture’ at the LSE Middle East Centre and the Department of Media and Communications.

Dr Aitemad Muhanna-Matar, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow

Aitemad Muhanna-Matar is currently conducting research on Salafist youth in Tunisia and their process of subjectification. 

Haneen Naamneh, Research Assistant

Haneen is Research Assitant on the project The Regulation of Palestinian Everyday Life’ run in collaboration with Birzeit University.

Dr Pejman Abdolmohammadi, Visiting Fellow

Pejman Abdolmohammadi is Lecturer of Political Science and Middle Eastern Studies at John Cabot University in Rome. His research and teaching activities focus on the politics and history of modern Iran, the intellectual history of Iran, geopolitics of the Persian Gulf, and international relations of the Middle East.

Dr Abeer Al-Najjar, Visiting Senior Fellow

Abeer is Associate Professor at the Department of Mass Communication, American University of Sharjah-United Arab Emirates. Her research interests include the intricacy of media, politics and religion in the MENA region. 

Dr Hessah Al-Ojayan, Visiting Fellow

Currently based in the Kuwait Programme, Hessah Al-Ojayan is Assistant Professor of Finance at Kuwait University. Her research interests include Islamic finance and economics, GCC and emerging capital market, SMEs, and the history of finance and economics in the Middle East.

Dr Shamel Azmeh, Visiting Fellow

Shamel Azmeh is Visiting Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre. He is also Assistant Professor at the University of Bath. He is currently leading a three-year collaboration project between the Centre at the American University in Cairo looking at North Africa’s economic integration with the EU.

Dr Ian Black, Visiting Senior Fellow

Ian Black is Visiting Senior Fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre. He is a former Middle East editor, diplomatic editor and European editor for the Guardian newspaper.

Ginny Hill, Visiting Fellow

Ginny Hill is an independent consultant and policy analyst, with 20 years’ experience in journalism, foreign policy, multi-stakeholder collaboration and political inclusion. 

Dr Jonathan Hill, Visiting Fellow

Jonathan Hill is Reader in Postcolonialism and the Maghreb in the Defence Studies Department at King’s College London. Jon’s research examines and compares political processes, structures and cultures in contemporary North Africa and, increasingly, the wider Middle East.

Martin Howard, Visiting Senior Fellow

Martin Howard is a recently retired UK senior civil servant researching post-conflict/crisis stabilisation drawing on experiences (including his own) in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and elsewhere.

Dr Zelal Başak Kızılkan, Visiting Fellow

Zelal Başak Kızılkan is Assistant Professor at Mardin Artuklu University in Turkey. She is currently Visiting Fellow at the Center carrying out research on the 'Neighbourhood Policies of the EU and Turkey after Arab Uprising', supported by the Newton-Katip Çelebi Fund of the British Council. 

Dr Mandy Turner, Visiting Senior Fellow

Mandy Turner is the Director of the Kenyon Institute (Council for British Research in the Levant) in East Jerusalem. Her research focuses thematically on the political economy of war and peace, with a country specialism on Palestine.

Dr Karen Young, Visiting Fellow

Karen Young is a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington. She was research fellow at the LSE Middle East Centre from 2014-15, where she remains a visiting fellow. From 2009-14, she was assistant professor of political science at the American University of Sharjah (UAE).

Professor Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, Visiting Professor

Abdulkhaleq Abdulla is a retired professor of Political Science and Chairman of the Arab Council for Social Science. His research interests include issues of political changes in the Gulf and the Arab World. 

Professor Madawi Al-Rasheed, Visiting Professor

Madawi Al Rasheed is Research Fellow at the Open Society Foundation. She was Professor of Anthropology of Religion at King’s College, London between 1994 and 2013. Previously, she was Prize Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford.

Professor Ali Ansari, Visiting Professor

Ali Ansari is Visiting Professor at the LSE Middle East Centre. He is also Professor of Iranian History at the University of St Andrews, and founding director of its Institute of Iranian Studies. 

Professor Umut Özkırımlı, Visiting Professor

Umut Özkırımlı is Professor of Political Science at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies (CMES), Lund University, and an Honorary Professor in Europe, Nationalism and Globalization at the Center for Modern European Studies (CEMES), University of Copenhagen; and a Senior Fellow at Istanbul Policy Center, Sabanci University. 

Professor Yoav Peled, Visiting Professor

Yoav Peled is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Tel Aviv University and in 2016–2017 a Leverhulme Professorial Fellow in the School of Global Studies at the University of Sussex.

Dr Shakuntala Banaji, Department of Media and Communications

Dr Banaji is Principal Investigator on the research project 'Personalised Media and Participatory Culture' in collaboration with the American Univesity in Sharjah. 

Professor Chetan Bhatt, Department of Sociology

Professor Bhatt is Principal Investigator on the research project 'The Regulation of Palestinian Everyday Life' in collaboration with Birzeit University. 

Professor Tim Dyson, Department of International Development

Professor Dyson is Principal Investigator on the project 'Mortality and Heatlh Survey among Internally Displaces Persons (IDPs) in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq' in collaboration with Hawler Medical University.  

Dr Jennifer Jackson Preece, European Institute

Dr Jackson Preece is Principal Investigator on the project '(Re) imagining young Muslim women? Comparing public responses to Ms Marvel in non-Muslim (UK) and Muslim (UAE) societies' in collaboration with the United Arab Emirates University. 

Dr Berkay Ozcan, Department of Social Policy

Dr Ozcan in Principal Investigator on the project Examinging Emirati Female Labor Force Participation and Entrepreneurship in the United Arab Emirates: A Multidisciplinary Approach' in collaboration with Zayed University.