EUCAM Coordinator

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Jos Boonstra

Before joining the Centre for European Security Studies in 2016, Boonstra worked as senior researcher, and later as head of the Eastern Europe and Central Asia programme at FRIDE, a think tank with offices in Madrid and Brussels. He completed MAs in Contemporary History and International Relations at the University of Groningen. His work focuses on Eurasian and transatlantic security issues (in particular EU, NATO and OSCE policies) as well as on development policies and democratisation in Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Boonstra is member of several internal research networks and regularly comments on international issues in the media. ​

EUCAM Communication Associate

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Yelena Kilina

Journalist and communications specialist. Worked for various media outlets in Kazakhstan and the Netherlands. Has been involved in EUCAM since 2019. Studied Journalism at the Kazakh National University in Almaty. She also holds a Master’s Degree in Euroculture: Society, Politics and Culture in a Global Context from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

EUCAM Associate Researcher

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Irna Hofman

Irna Hofman is a rural sociologist specialised in agrarian change and rural livelihoods in Central Asia, and has long-term academic and professional experience in the region, particularly Tajikistan. She obtained a Ph.D. from Leiden University in 2019 with a dissertation focussed on the political economy of agrarian transformation in lowland Tajikistan, and recently completed a post-doctoral research project at the University of Oxford centred on the growing Chinese presence in rural Tajikistan. Alongside academic research projects she has undertaken diverse short-term consultancy assignments for international organisations active in Central Asia and actively engages in public debate and dialogue. Her expertise and interest cover a broad range of themes: agrarian political economy, labour, food security, conflict, gender, migration, and China’s role in rural Central Asia.

EUCAM Associate Researcher

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Rashid Gabdulhakov

Rashid Gabdulhakov is an assistant professor at the Research Centre for Media and Journalism Studies at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. He defended his PhD (with honours) on the phenomenon of digital vigilantism at Erasmus University Rotterdam. Rashid has a vast teaching and research experience that he gained in Central Asia, Russia, Europe, and the United States. He has been actively involved with EUCAM fellowship programme through designing and delivering a ‘Media and Security’ workshop. He holds a master’s degree in International and European Security from the University of Geneva and the Geneva Centre for Security Policy; as well as a master’s degree in Politics and Security from the OSCE Academy in Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic.

EUCAM Associate Researcher

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Fabienne Bossuyt

Fabienne Bossuyt is assistant professor at the Centre for EU Studies of the Department of Political Science at Ghent University. She holds a PhD from Aston University (UK) and Ghent University based on a doctoral dissertation on the EU’s influence in Post-Soviet Central Asia. Previously, she obtained a Master’s degree in Translation Studies (Ghent University, 2004) and a postgraduate degree in International Relations and Conflict Management (KULeuven, 2005). Her main research interests relate to EU foreign policy, particularly the EU’s policies towards the Eastern neighbouring countries and the Central Asian countries, and the EU’s democracy promotion and human rights policies.

EUCAM Associate Researcher

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Kamila Smagulova

Kamila Smagulova is a researcher from Kazakhstan, working as a research fellow and program coordinator at the Paperlab Public Policy Research Center based in Astana. Currently she is engaged in the Lane Kirkland Scholarship Program in Poland. In 2022, Kamila was a research fellow at EUCAM and now she hosts the EUCAM podcast ‘A Chat in the Yurt’. She holds an MA in Public Policy and BA in political science/international relations from Nazarbayev University. Kamila’s research focus is on political processes in Central Asia. More broadly she works on topics like nationalism, nation-building, and civic activism.

EUCAM Associate Researcher

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Douwe van der Meer

Douwe van der Meer is a researcher on water, energy, climate, and security in Eastern Europe, Turkey, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia. He holds a BA in International Relations (Rijksuniversiteit Groningen) and an MA in Global Political Economy (Leiden University), and has interned at the Istanbul Policy Center (IPC) and the Clingendael Institute. He is a member of the South Caucasus Water Academics Network (SWAN) and has participated in multiple Election Observation Missions in the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. Besides research, he works as a tour guide, exploring these region’s history and culture.

EUCAM Associate Researcher

Chiara Pierobon

Chiara Pierobon

Chiara Pierobon is Senior Lecturer and Researcher at the European University Viadrina (Germany). She holds a bi-national PhD in Sociology and Social Research awarded by the University of Bielefeld and the University of Trento (Italy). In the past years, Dr. Pierobon served as manager of education exchange initiatives and programmes in Europe and Russia funded by the European Commission and the DAAD, and of collaborative research projects in Central Asia funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. In 2024, she completed her Habilitation at Bielefeld University (Germany). Dr. Pierobon is former DAAD Visiting Professor at the University of Washington, Seattle (USA), Visiting Professor for Macrosociology and European Societies at the Otto-von-Guericke University Magdeburg (Germany) and at the Asia-Europe Institute (AEI) of Malaya University (Malaysia) and former Visiting Scholar at American University of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan), German Kazakh-University (Kazakhstan), University of California/Berkeley (USA) and St. Petersburg State University (Russia).

EUCAM Associate Researcher

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Andreas Marazis

Andreas Marazis is a project manager and policy professional with over a decade of experience across international organisations, think tanks, and NGOs in Denmark, Belgium, and Spain. He has held positions as Project Manager and Head of Research at the European Neighbourhood Council, where he led multi-country EU-funded programmes and delivered research and advocacy targeting EU institutions. He contributed extensively in the EUCAM initiative, designing and facilitating capacity building for civil society representatives from Central Asia and co-developing the ongoing podcast series ‘Chat in the Yurt’. Andreas holds degrees in Security Studies, Black Sea Political Studies, and Greek Philology, and has contributed to international election missions, mentoring initiatives, and public policy discourse.

EUCAM Associate Researcher

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Vera Axyonova

Vera Axyonova is Marie Curie REWIRE Fellow at the University of Vienna and Principal Investigator of the project “Expert Knowledge in Times of Crisis – Uncovering Interaction Effects between Think Tanks, Media and Politics beyond Liberal Democracies”. Before joining the University of Vienna, Vera worked in research, science management and policy consulting, including as the Managing Director of “Academics in Solidarity”, a transnational mentoring program for at-risk scholars at Freie Universität Berlin, as a Postdoctoral Researcher/Assistant Professor for International Integration at Justus Liebig University Giessen, and as a Hurford Next Generation Fellow with the Carnegie Endowment’s Euro-Atlantic Security Initiative. Vera Axyonova is co-founder of the ECPR Research Network on Statehood, Sovereignty and Conflict. She holds a PhD in Political Science from Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences.

EUCAM Associate Researcher

Tika Tsertsvadze

Tinatin Tsertsvadze

Tinatin Tsertsvadze is a policy analyst on EU external relations at the Open Society European Policy Institute in Brussels. Before that she was International Advocacy Manager at the International partnership for Human Rights and she worked at FRIDE, a European think-tank based in Brussels and Madrid, as Central Asia programme manager. She authored several publications on the EU’s human rights and democracy policies in the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Tinatin Tsertsvadze has a MA in Public Administration (specializing in European Studies) from the Georgian University (Georgia).

EUCAM Associate Researcher

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Sébastien Peyrouse

Sébastien Peyrouse is a research professor of International Affairs at the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES), the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, Washington DC. Next to this Sébastien joined FRIDE as an associate researcher and is also an associated fellow at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations, Paris. Sébastien was a doctoral and postdoctoral fellow at the French Institute for Central Asia Studies in Tashkent (1998-2000 and 2002-2005). His main areas of expertise are political systems in Central Asia, Islam and religious minorities, and Central Asia’s geopolitical positioning toward China, India and South Asia.