Speaker Biographies

Dr Andrea Ascani is an LSE Fellow in Economic Geography, LSE. Andrea holds a PhD in Economic Geography funded by ESRC and a MSc in Local Economic Development (with Distinction) from the LSE. Previously, he completed a MSc in Development Studies (with honours) and a BA in Development Economics (with honours), both from University of Rome ‘La Sapienza’. Outside academia, he worked as programme officer at the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Herat City, Afghanistan. He also worked as consultant at the OECD and intern at the Permanent Mission of Italy to the UN in Geneva.

Professor Iain Begg is Professorial Research Fellow at the European Institute, LSE whose research primarily focuses on the political economy of European integration and EU economic governance. He has directed and participated in a series of research projects on different facets of EU policy; currently being involved with projects concerning governance of EU economic and social policy, the EU's Europe 2020 strategy, evaluation of EU cohesion policy and reform of the EU budget, policy co-ordination under EMU, and the social impact of globalisation. He is co-editor of the Journal of Common Market Studies, and has served as an expert witness or specialist adviser on EU issues for the House of Commons Treasury Committee, the House of Lords European Communities Committee, and the European Parliament.

Professor Julia Black is currently Pro Director for Research at LSE and will serve as Interim Director of the School from September 2016. She joined the Law Department in 1994. Julia completed her first degree in Jurisprudence and her DPhil at Oxford University. She has had a British Academy / Leverhulme Trust Senior Research Fellowship, and has been a Visiting Fellow at the University of Sydney and at All Souls College, Oxford. In 2014 she was the Sir Frank Holmes Visiting Professor in Public Policy at the University of Victoria, Wellington. Julia has written extensively on regulatory issues in a number of areas, and has advised policy makers, consumer bodies and regulators on issues of institutional design and regulatory policy. Julia was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 2015 and granted the ECPR Standing Group on Regulatory Governance’s life time achievement award for her work on regulation in 2016.

Dr Maria Carvalho works as a Policy Analyst for the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change & Environment (GRI), focusing on energy and climate policies for the EU, along with North American policy engagement. She initially joined the GRI as a PhD student in 2010. Maria’s PhD was on “The internationalisation of green technologies and the realisation of green growth”. Her research investigates how different economies can realise opportunities for green growth from various industrial activities (such as innovation, manufacturing and markets) based on: the comparative advantages of the economy; the stage of development a particular technology; and the costs of trade. The research also considers how political economy factors affect ‘who collaborates with whom’ in the international research of green technologies. The findings seek to advance the competitiveness debate by recognising the tension between the shift of green industrial activities (particularly manufacturing, and the locational implications on innovation), and the associated green growth in domestic economies.

Professor Paul de Grauwe is John Paulson Chair in European Political Economy at LSE, Director of the Money, Macro and International Finance Research Network of CESifo, University of Munich, and research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels and the Centre for Economic Policy Research, London. His research interests include international monetary relations, monetary integration, theory and empirical analysis of the foreign-exchange markets, and open-economy macroeconomics. Presently he is researching a new project entitled: “Structural Reforms and European Integration: Theory, Measurement and Econometric Evidence”. Prior to joining LSE, Paul De Grauwe was a member of the Belgian parliament from 1991 to 2003, and has also acted as a visiting scholar at the IMF, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the Bank of Japan and the European Central Bank. 

Professor Samuel Fankhauser is Co-Director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, and Deputy Director of the ESRC-funded Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy, both at the London School of Economics. He is also a Director of economics consultancy Vivid Economics and serves on the Committee on Climate Change, an independent public body that advises the UK government on carbon targets.

Professor Kevin Featherstone is Head of the European Institute at LSE, Eleftherios Venizelos Professor of Contemporary Greek Studies, and Co-Chair of LSEE: Research on South-East Europe. His research has focussed on the politics of the European Union and the politics of contemporary Greece; his work has been framed in the perspectives of comparative politics, public policy, political economy and processes of 'Europeanization'. He is the first foreign member of the National Council for Research and Technology (ESET) in Greece, and in 2009/10 he served on an advisory committee for the reform of the Greek government.  

Professor Sara Hobolt is Sutherland Chair in European Institutions at the European Institute, LSE. Previously, she has held posts at the University of Oxford and the University of Michigan. She holds an honorary professorship in political science at the University of Southern Denmark and she is associate member of Nuffield College, Oxford. She has published extensively on European Union politics, elections and referendums. Her most recent book is Blaming Europe? Responsibility without Accountability in the EU (Oxford University Press, 2014, with James Tilley). She was awarded the Best Book prize by the European Union Studies Association in 2010 for her previous book Europe in Question: Referendums on European Integration (Oxford University Press, 2009). In 2011, she received the APSA emerging scholar award for her contribution to the field of elections, public opinion and voting behaviour.  She was the 2012 winner of the Nils Kim prize, awarded by the Ludvig Holberg Memorial Fund to a young Nordic researcher who has made an outstanding contribution in the social sciences and humanities.  Sara Hobolt is Vice Chair of the European Election Studies (EES), an EU-wide project studying voters, parties, candidates and the media in European Parliamentary elections. She was the BBC television election expert in the 2009 and 2014 European elections.

Professor Simona Iammarino is Head of Department and Professor of Economic Geography at the LSE Department of Geography & Environment. She joined the LSE in 2009 a Reader. She was previously Reader at the Science and Technology Policy Research (SPRU), University of Sussex (UK). She completed her PhD in International Economics in 1994, at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”. Previous positions include: lecturer at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”; researcher at the Italian National Institute of Statistics (ISTAT); Marie Curie Research Fellow and visiting lecturer at the University of Reading; post-doc fellow at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge; post-doc fellow at the Italian National Research Council.

Dr Jennifer Jackson-Preece is Associate Professor of Nationalism at LSE, engaging with policies directed at minorities and migrants. Jennifer was expert advisor to the Council of Europe Advisory Committee’s Fourth Thematic Commentary on the Scope of Application of the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (2016), as well as an expert advisor in the drafting of the OSCE Ljubljana Guidelines on Integration of Diverse Societies (2012). Jennifer works closely with leading international and non-governmental organizations including the OSCE's High Commissioner on National Minorities, the Council of Europe, the European Centre for Minority Issues (Germany), and the Tom Lantos Institute (Hungary).

Professor Niamh Moloney is Professor of Law at LSE.   Niamh is a graduate of Trinity College Dublin and Harvard Law School. She specializes in EU financial market regulation and wrote the first monograph on this topic, now in its third edition (EU Securities and Financial Markets Regulation, Oxford University Press, 2014). Her other books include The Regulatory Aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis  (Cambridge University Press, 2012, with John C. Coffee, Eilís Ferran, and Jennifer Hill) and How to Protect Investors. Lessons from the EU and the UK (Cambridge University Press, 2010). Niamh is an editorial board member of a number of journals, an editor of the Oxford Handbook of Financial Regulation (Oxford University Press, 2015), and a series editor of the Cambridge University Press Series on International Corporate Law and Capital Market Regulation. Niamh has been a Visiting Professor in a number of institutions internationally, including recently Bocconi University, Milan, the University of Zurich, and Columbia Law School, New York, and is a Fellow (Household Finance) of the House of Finance, Goethe University, Frankfurt. 

Professor Tony Travers is Director of research centre LSE London, and a Visiting Professor in the LSE’s Government Department. His key research interests cover central and local government policy and finance, including a speciality in all aspects of local government structures, functions and finance. Has undertaken research into public sector regulation, and published on resource distribution mechanisms for local government and schools. He is currently an advisor to the House of Commons Children, Schools and Families Select Committee and the Communities and Local Government Select Committee.

Professor Cornelia Woll is Vice President for Studies and Academic Affairs, Sciences Po.   She is also Professor of political science and a researcher at Centre d'études européennes at Sciences Po. Previously, she has co-directed the Max Planck Sciences Po Center (MaxPo) and the Interdisciplinary Research Center for the Evaluation of Public Policies (LIEPP). She served as Associate Dean for Research of Sciences Po from 2008 to 2012. During 2011/2012, she was on leave at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University.

Christopher Wratil (Germany) is a PhD candidate at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He specialises in topics concerning the future of modern democracy, ranging from the EU's democratic deficit to the relationship between political participation and social inequality. Prior, he was a Project Manager at Bertelsmann Stiftung. He holds an M.Phil in European Politics and Society from the University of Oxford and is co-founder of the award-winning online magazine "Europe & Me".