Core Team Profiles

Qualified as a medical doctor, Rony Brauman has worked in the field of international medical assistance since 1977. Initially serving as a field physician in developing countries with Médecins San Frontières (France), he became the President of the organisation from 1982 -1994.

He is currently Associate Professor at L'Institut d'Études Politiques (Paris), Director of Research at the MSF Foundation also in Paris , and Director of the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute

Betty-Ann Bristow obtained her undergraduate degree in Ethics, Philosophy and Religion at Lancaster University, and is completing her MRes in Philosophy here at The University of Manchester. Betty-Ann has worked in the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures for over four years, working in programmes & assessment administration, and student support. She joined HCRI in Nov 2011 where she takes a lead role on the planning and implementation of HCRI’s extensive programme of events and is also the first point of contact for all students on the new online programmes in global health.

Dr Jenny Carson completed her PhD at the University of Manchester in 2009 and has been working as a Research Associate at HCRI since February 2010. Jenny took up the post of Lecturer in Humanitarianism and Conflict Response and MA Director in August 2011.  Her research focuses on the humanitarian assistance provided to refugees and displaced persons (DP) since 1945, with special reference to the work of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).  One element of her work, focusing on Quaker responses to DP nationalism in camps in Germany after World War 2, appears in Warlands: Population Resettlement and State Reconstruction in Soviet-East European Borderlands, 1945-1950, eds. Peter Gatrell and Nick Baron (2009).

Alison conducts research on the relationship between health and security. In particular, she is interested in examining the role of psychology and psychiatry in responding to conflict, especially as they are used in detention facilities such as Guantanamo, post-conflict situations, and in Western militaries. She is currently conducting a research project examining recent changes in the mental health policy of the American, British, Canadian, and Australian militaries, and on the impact these changes may have for the practice of contemporary soldiering and humanitarianism.  She is the author of a number of published works, the most recent of which include a forthcoming book with Routledge on Madness in International Relations, and an article in Security Dialogue on mental health sector reform in post-invasion Iraq.

Rubina’s areas of interest are anthropology of violence and reconstruction, medical anthropology with 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.

Working with survivors of ethnic violence, she became interested in mental illness and has completed two pieces of research on ethnicity and mental illness in inner city areas of Birmingham and is the qualitative lead on research studies looking at help-seeking and ‘institutional racism’. At HCRI, she aims to pursue further research in the areas of conflict, culture and mental health.

Paul is completing his PhD studies in Operations Research at Aston Business School where he worked within the Aston Business School
CRISIS Centre analysing evacuation decision-making in advance of catastrophic disaster across the EU and in Japan. His research interests include applied quantitative research methods, statistical decision theory, geographic information systems (GIS) and the application of these techniques to emergency management. He completed his bachelors degree in International Relations from Brigham Young University (Provo, UT) as well as a masters degree in Development Economics from the University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA).

Previous work experience includes participation in emergency/crisis research with the City of Pittsburgh Emergency Operations Center, the Pacific Disaster Center (Kihei, Hawaii), and the Ford Institute of Human Security (Pittsburgh, PA). He has also consulted on disaster management projects with local community resilience teams, Environment Agency and local fire/police services in the UK.

Peter obtained his undergraduate and PhD degrees from the University of Cambridge. He has spent most of his academic career at The University of Manchester, including working as Head of the School of History and Classics between 1997 and 2002 prior to becoming part of the School of Arts, Histories and Cultures.

Peter's research and teaching interests fall into two broad categories: population displacement in world history and the history of modern Europe. These twin interests are also brought together in his commitment to the cultural history of modern war.

After working in Turkey and Nigeria during the 1990s, Tim Jacoby won an ESRC-funded place on the International Conflict Analysis Masters degree programme at the University of Kent.

He then completed his PhD and an ESRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Department of Politics at the University of York from 1999-2003. Since 2005, he has been senior lecturer in conflict studies at the Institute for Development Policy & Management within the University of Manchester. His research concerns the historical sociology of state development, facism, political violence and post-war reconstruction - with a particular focus on Turkey.

Roger Mac Ginty is Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies at the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute and the Department of Politics. He is editor (with Oliver Richmond) of the new Taylor and Francis journal Peacebuilding and is currently editing the Handbook on Peacebuilding for Routledge. In 2011-12 he is working on an EU FP7 project ‘Cultures of governance and conflict resolution in India and the EU’. He edits the Rethinking Political Violence book series with Palgrave. His latest book is International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance.

Tanja R. Müller received an MA in Linguistics and Philosophy (1991) at the Freie Universität Berlin, an MA in Development Studies at University College Dublin (1994), and a Ph.D. in Development Studies (2003) at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK.

She has worked as a university lecturer in Dublin (1991-1993) and Asmara (2000-2001), as an education consultant in Japan (1997-1999), and as a journalist on development-related issues (1994-2000). She was assistant professor at Wageningen University from 2003-2005 with the programme African Women Leaders in Agriculture and the Environment (AWLAE), where she worked on the implications of the HIV/AIDS pandemic for rural development in sub-Saharan Africa.

She joined the Institute for Development Policy & Management (IDPM) within the University of Manchester in 2006.

Barni received an MSc in Public Health Nutrition at London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (2005) and a PhD in International Health at Uppsala University (2010). She has worked in Zambia, Sweden and South Africa on issues of gender, sexuality, reproductive health, child nutrition and HIV/AIDS.

Barni’s research and teaching interests are in the field of refugee health, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV, management of famine and disease in conflict, and the politics of food and food aid. Barni is particularly interested in intervention strategies and the question of how we put scientific knowledge into practice.

Jenny Peterson conducts research on the politics of conflict response and critiques of liberal peacebuilding. With a particular interest in the concept of political space and its impact on aid policy and practice, her current research agenda questions the possibilities for policy innovation and increasing levels of agency within the aid industry.

Her doctoral work included research trips to Kosovo in 2005 and 2006 during which she investigated the norms and processes relating to `rule of law' projects and economic reforms which were used to fight criminality and political corruption.

Dr. Peterson joins the HCRI from the University of British Columbia in Canada where she recently completed a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in the Department of Political Science.

Tony has led medical teams to sudden onset disasters, complex emergencies and conflicts for over twenty five years . He recently led medical teams to the earthquakes in china in 2008 and Haiti in 2010. He is Director of the UK international Emergency trauma register which aims to improve training and accountability of those who respond to large scale emergencies overseas. He is academic lead for global health education at Manchester medical school

Oliver joins us as Professor of International Relations, Peace and Conflict Studies. His primary area of expertise is in peace and conflict theory, and in particular its interlinkages with IR theory. Recently, he has become interested in local forms of critical agency and resistance, and their role in constructing hybrid or post-liberal forms of peace and states (see A Post-Liberal Peace, 2011). He is editor (with Roger Mac Ginty) of the new Taylor and Francis journal Peacebuilding.

Oliver is currently co-directing and involved in several major research projects, funded by a range of research councils and donors. He has received several major grants, including from the Leverhulme Trust, two EUFP7 grants, an EU Marie Curie for post-doctoral support, two grants from the British Academy, as well as UNU, the Carnegie and Nuffield Trusts (for fieldwork and for further post-doctoral support).

Steve Reyna has performed research in Power and Conflict/War and Violence: Global Historical Perspectives; Crude Domination: Oil and Contemporary Social Transformation; Post-colonial Development; and Western and Central African Ethnography. He has conducted development missions for the UNDP, USAID, IFAD, and EU in fourteen West and Central African countries. He was the Founding Editor and first Editor of Anthropological Theory and is the Co-Founder and current Co-Head of Centre de la Recherche en Anthropologie et Sciences Humaines, Chad.

Born in France, Professor Bertrand Taithe studied at the Sorbonne with Professor François Crouzet and began his career as a historian of urban sociology. He later moved into the history of medicine and sexuality and is particularly interested in the history of humanitarian aid.

Professor Taithe is a prolific author, Editor of the European Review of History, and co-Director of the Humanitarian and Conflict Response Institute.

James Thompson is the Project Director of In Place of War and a Professor of Applied and Social Theatre in the Department of Drama at the University of Manchester.

In Place of War came out of his work in Sri Lanka, where in 2000 he was invited by UNICEF to run training courses for practitioners working with young people affected by conflict. During these sessions, James was impressed by the extensive use of theatre in response to the 20 year long civil war, which in turn, led to many of the research questions addressed by In Place of War.

James specialises in performance in conflict and disaster zones, theatre with offenders, theatre and development and Sri Lankan theatre. He has documented theatre practice in Sri Lanka, Democratic Republic of Congo, Banda Aceh and the UK.

Rebecca graduated with a degree in psychology from Aston University before moving into medical publishing and later, working within communication agencies where she delivered medical education and medical marketing programmes.

Rebecca joined the University of Manchester in Jan 2008 as a major gift fundraiser with a focus on the Faculty of Medical & Human Sciences before taking up this role as Institute Manager.