Recent Authors

Our expanding group of contributors comes from a wide range of specialist backgrounds, and includes researchers,  academics, security and development practitioners and NGO staff based around the world. Some of our most recent authors include:

Chris Abbott
Chris is the founder and executive director of Open Briefing, the world’s first civil society intelligence agency.  He is an Honorary Visiting Research Fellow in the School of Social and International Studies at the University of Bradford and the former deputy director of Oxford Research Group.

Phillip Bruner
Phillip is Founder of the Green Investment Forum and a guest lecturer in global political economy at the University of Edinburgh.

Matt Budd
Matt is a security analyst at RESDAL (Red de Seguridad y Defensa de America Latina – Latin American Security and Defense Network) in Buenos Aires, where he focuses on public security issues in Central America. Matt holds an honours degree in International Relations from the London School of Economics. Matt has most recently been working on RESDAL’s  Public Security Index, which provides information on public security challenges and institutional responses to them in Central America.

Mabel González Bustelo
Mabel is a journalist, researcher and international consultant specialized in international peace and security, with a focus on non-State actors in world politics, organized violence, conflict and peacebuilding. She has worked as a researcher on peace and security  in Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, Angola and the Palestinian territories and holds an MLitt in terrorism Studies from the University of St Andrews. Mabel blogs at The Making of War and Peace.

David Cliff
David Cliff works as a researcher at the Verification Research, Training and Information Centre (VERTIC) in London. There, his work focuses on research into the verification, implementation and compliance aspects of nuclear and chemical arms control and disarmament treaties. He holds a BA in Geography and an MA in International Affairs, both from the University of Exeter in the UK.

Lisa Dittmar
Lisa is the CEO and founder of NitrogenWise,  a website that brings together research and straightforward communication to explain the complexities of nitrogen in a meaningful and relevant way.

Bernard Harborne
Bernard Harborne is lead of the Violence Prevention Team in the World Bank, having joined in 2004. He has worked for over 20 years on conflict-affected countries for the UN, World Bank, NGOs and the British Government. He has a background in law, including a Masters in International Law from the LSE, and is an adjunct professor at George Washington University. Opinions expressed in his article represent his personal views and not those of the World Bank.

Cameron Harrington
Cameron  is an Adjunct Professor of Political Science at King’s University College and Brescia University College, at Western University (Canada), where he teaches in the areas of environmental politics and international relations. His Ph.D thesisbuilds a framework to combat water insecurity in the 21st century by focusing on the ethics of security.

Anna Alissa Hitzemann
Alissa is a Peaceworker with Quaker Peace and Social Witness. In this capacity, she previously wortked with Oxford Research Group as a Project Officer for the Sustainable Security Programme, with a focus on the  ‘Marginalisation of the Majority World’ project.

Andrew Holland
Andy is Senior Fellow for Energy and Climate at American Security Project, a Washington D.C based think tank. He is an expert on energy, climate change, and infrastructure policy. He has over seven years of experience working at the center of debates about how to achieve sustainable energy security and how to effectively address climate change. He tweets regularly via @TheAndyHolland.

Sarah Kinosian
Sarah is a program associate for Latin America at the Center for International Policy, a nongovernmental organization based in Washington D.C. that promotes transparency and accountability in U.S. foreign policy and global relations. She works on their Just the Facts project, monitoring U.S. defense and security assistance to Latin America and the Caribbean.

Jenny Nielsen
Jenny Nielsen is a Research Analyst with the Non-proliferation and Disarmament Programme at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS). Previously, she was a Programme Manager for the Defence & Security Programme at Wilton Park and a Research Assistant for the Mountbatten Centre for International Studies (MCIS) at the University of Southampton. At MCIS, Jenny was tasked with the co-editing the 2004-2012 editions of the NPT Briefing Book. She holds a PhD from the University of Southampton which focused on US nuclear non-proliferation policy vis-à-vis Iran in the 1970s.

Zoë Pelter
Zoë is a Research Officer of Oxford Research Group’s (ORG) Sustainable Security Programme, where she works on a number of projects including ‘Rethinking UK Security and Defence’ and Sustainable Security and the Global South’.

Edward Rackley
Edward Rackley is a Security and Governance consultant for the World Bank, based in Washington DC. He provides periodic technical and strategic advice to the Security Sector Accountability and Police Reform Programme program  in Democratic Republic of Congo via DAI Europe, one of the program’s managing agents.

Richard Reeve
Richard  is the Director of Oxford Research Group’s Sustainable Security programme. He works across a wide range of defence and security issues and is responsible for the strategic direction of the programme. Richard has particular expertise in global security, Sub-Saharan Africa, peace and conflict analysis, and the security role of regional organisations.

Rachel Staley
Rachel Staley is currently the Programme Manager for the British American Security Information Council (BASIC) in their London office. Since 2011, Rachel has managed the operations of the office and assisted in developing the organisation’s programmes working on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament in the Middle East, as well as engaging directly in the Trident renewal debate in the United Kingdom. Rachel holds an MA with Distinction in Non-Proliferation and International Security from King’s College London and a BA with Honours in International Affairs and Anthropology from Northeastern University.

Sonja Wolf 
Sonja Wolf is a researcher at the Institute for Security and Democracy (INSYDE), Mexico City. She has acted as project coordinator and principal investigator of INSYDE’s Assessment Study of Mexico’s National Migration Institute (INM), the first comprehensive study to examine the INM’s institutional and migration management and the ways in which it facilitates corruption and migrant abuse.

Ben Zala
Ben is a Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Leicester and former Director of the Sustainable Security Programme at Oxford Research Group.