Visiting Research Fellows 2015-16 Winter Term 2016 Dr. Abdo Ali Abdullah Al-Bahesh is research scholar and writer in the field of politics, human rights, history, Middle Eastern studies and Media. He received a BA degree in Media from the University of Baghdad, Iraq, in 1999 and an MA degree in Political and International Studies from Al- Mustanseriah University, Iraq, in 2004. He received his PhD in Mass Communication and Journalism from the University of Mysore, India, in 2009. He is currently working as a Chairperson of the Department of Political Studies and Research in the Yemen Center for Studies and Research in Sana'a, Yemen, where he has been appointed as senior research scholar in 2009. He is very interested in conducting research in Middle Eastern studies, with special focus on Yemen. His main research interest is in the field of history, political conflict, ideological conflict between Islamic groups, human rights, genocide and war crimes, crimes against humanity, peace and development and other issues of the Middle East. He has teaching experience. He was Lecturer at the University of Modern Sciences in Yemen for three years between 2009 and 2011 and Lecturer at the University of Future in Yemen for two years between 2010 and 2011. Dr. Gholamreza Jafari is faculty member at the Physics and Cognitive Science Department of Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran. He earned a Ph.D. in Physics from Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran in 2005. His research focuses in general on the field of complex systems. Currently he is researching on the following topics: complex network dynamics and collective behavior and their application in social and economic problems and cognitive science; data analysis, criticality, coupled systems analysis, fractional calculus. Dr. Grace Bosibori Nyamongo is Research Associate/Lecturer at the African Women's Studies Centre at the University of Nairobi. She was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to pursue PhD studies and in 2009 received her PhD in Women's Studies from York University. In November - December 2009 she was GEXCel Scholar at Linkoping University in Sweden. In 2009 - 2010 she was Assistant Professor at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA. In 2011 - 2012 she was lecturer at Kenyatta University. She has and continues to supervise several postgraduate students' research projects and theses. She has published various articles in the areas of gender, politics and African sexuality. Her research interests include women and work, violence against women and girls and other vulnerable groups, gender issues, and African sexuality. She has also worked as an independent consultant for the African Development Bank (AFBD) on Higher Education Science and Technology (HEST) – Gender and Labour market dynamics in Uganda. In the area of transformative advocacy she is actively engaged in the sensitization of rural people, and mentoring the youth on issues including poverty eradication strategies, HIV/AIDS, education, FGM and conflict resolution among others. Dr. Grace Bosibori Nyamongo is hosted by the CEU Department of Gender Studies. Dr. Jose Pablo Prado Cordova is a tenured lecturer at Universidad de San Carlos in Guatemala, where he teaches social sciences and rural development to first year students at the Faculty of Agronomy. His research interest is in political ecology as such an overarching approach to environmental problems gives him the chance to navigate between both social and biophysical sciences. He is also very interested in exploring the human condition and, above all, how people came to be what they are as citizens, nature appropriators, subjects and free thinkers. At this point of his career he decided to devote a significant amount of time to write down his ideas about these topics and delve into the particulars of environmental ethics in the process. Earlier he has spent a great deal of time as a volunteer with the YMCA of Guatemala. Dr. Vo Van Dut is lecturer and researcher at the Department of International Business, the College of Economics, Can Tho University, Vietnam, where he obtained his bachelor degree. Vo Van Dut has been awarded the PhD title in 2014 from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He received master degree (MSc) in International Economics and Business in 2007 and the master by research degree (Mphil) of International Business in 2009 at the same university. His PhD project focused on subsidiary decision-making autonomy in multinational enterprises. His research interests are in the field of international business, SMEs and cooperate governance. His current works have been published in peer-reviewed journals like International Business Review, Asian Academy of Management Journal, Problems and Perspectives in Management. Vo Van Dut has also visited several times the Halle Institute for Economic Research during his PhD project. His current interest stems from his ambition to understand how cultural distance affects MNE subsidiary's access to local complementary assets and how subsidiary's forward and backward linkages impact its innovation. Dr. Mohamed Ahmed Suleiman is assistant professor at the Department of Philosophy, Section of Medieval Studies, Faculty of Arts at the University of Beni Suef, Egypt. Interested mainly in medieval Christian philosophy and theology, he wrote his master degree thesis on the philosophy of law and politics of Marsillius of Padua under the supervision of professors Ismat Nassar, Christian van Nispen and Jean Pierre Courtess. The title of his PhD dissertation was “The theology of Saint Anselm of Canterbury” and he wrote it under the supervision of professors Ismat Nassar, Catarina Bello, Joseph D'Amecourt and Ermis Segatti. His field of interests and scientific research focus is on the study of the Bible, patristic theology and interreligious dialogue. He is also teaching history of religions, metaphysics and philosophy of religion. He speaks modern standard Arabic, Egyptian Arabic, English, French and Modern Greek. He has a good knowledge of Hebrew, ancient Greek and Latin. He participated in many international conferences focusing on the common understanding and mutual values between Christianity and Islam. He works now on the hermeneutics of the translation of the New Testament from byzantine Greek into modern standard Arabic. He is totally engaged in studying the phenomenology of religions and their interpretations among people, giving more importance to religion as natural source for love and peace. Myanmar fellows Dr. Khin Khin Oo, an Associate Professor at the Department of Law, University of Yangon (Myanmar), received her LLB (1993), LLM (1997), and PhD in Law (2005) degrees from University of Yangon. Her teaching career started at Dagon University’s Law Department and subsequently taught at a number of Myanmar universities’ law departments under the cadre transfer system of the Ministry of Education. Her area of specialization is civil law - studying and teaching criminal law, civil law, family law and constitutional law. Her teaching subjects are Criminal and Civil Law and procedures, Law of Evidence, Law of Insurance, Law of Business Organizations and different branches of commercial law at the undergraduate, postgraduate, and Diploma level. She was one of the leaders of a research group for drafting National Education Law and core member of drafting Committee for Small and Medium Enterprises Development Law and Myanmar Industrial Zone Law. She published on issues of Myanmar Customary Law, especially on children’s rights and matrimonial rights, and on Constitutional Tribunal of Myanmar in academic journals in Myanmar. In 2014, Dr. Khin Khin Oo won an award for the best paper in Law at the Myanmar Academy of Arts and Science, the most honored academic research institution in Myanmar. The field of her current research is constitutional adjudication systems of different countries and different legal systems, where she aims to produce recommendations on modernizing Myanmar’s constitutional review legislation. She was a research student at the International Institute for the Rights of the Child (Sion, Switzerland, 2004), a visiting research fellow at National University of Singapore (2014), and an ISEF fellow at Seoul National University (2014). She is hosted by the CEU Department of Legal Studies. E-mail: [email protected] Dr. Mo Mo Thant is a Professor and Head of History Department at the Yangon University of Distance Education (Myanmar). She attained her BA (1984) and MA (1990) degrees from Mandalay University and a PhD at the University of Yangon (2002). She is a member of the Governing Board of SEAMEO CHAT: Regional Centre for History and Tradition. Her research area is Social history, in particular religion in Myanmar, with a special interest in women and religion. She has nine publications in the research journals of the Myanmar Academy of Arts and Science, Yangon University of Distance Education and SEAMEO Regional Centre for History and Tradition and five international publications including at the University of Passau, Germany, at the Centre for Bharat studies in Mahidol University in Thailand and at the Institute for Southeast Asian Studies in Korea. She has authored textbooks and references for secondary schools, as well as texts and study guides for the distance education students on Myanmar Social History and History of the United States. She frequently presents on different history topics on the dedicated education channel of MRTV. She has supervised MA and PhD dissertations and served as an external examiner at Yangon and Mandalay Universities and the National Defence College in Nay Pyi Taw. She was a DAAD Visiting Research Fellow at the Comparative Religion Department at Bonn University, Germany. Dr. Mo Mo Thant is hosted by the CEU Department of Gender Studies. E-mail: [email protected] Dr. Nyein Nyein San Ei is an Associate Professor at the Department of International Relations at Yadanabon University, Myanmar, until recently she taught at Mandalay University. She received a BA (Honors) Degree in International Relations in 1994, an MA Degree in 1998 and a PhD Degree in 2007 – all from Mandalay University in central Myanmar.