These senior members of our expert network work in close cooperation with the firm to help steer our analysis in identifying key themes and framing questions that clients may need to be asking.
Region Heads
Region heads are leading academics or former senior industry and government practitioners who are abreast of cutting-edge thinking on geopolitical and macroeconomic issues and help keep our in-house team in touch with the latest events, opinions and movements both on the ground and in the influential decision-making institutions around the world.
This dynamic relationship between our in-house Analysts and the wider network is a major contributor to our analytical foresight, and every weekday you can see the relationship in action as Analysts and Region Heads gather at our Morning Conference in Oxford.
International
Dr Shirin Ashraf M.Sc.
University of Oxford, Ph.D. University of Cambridge; Research Associate, Emerging Infections, University of Glasgow
With an academic background in human immunology and now specialising in infectious diseases around the world, Dr Ashraf also focuses on emerging viruses, rapid diagnostics, viral zoonosis and one-health. Active presence and partnership in sub-Saharan Africa. Wider academic interests include equitable healthcare and policy, global health, outbreak investigations. Also keen on outreach, increasing public awareness and conversation around global health through writing and media.
Dr Valpy FitzGerald
Director of Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford; Professorial Fellow, St Antony’s College, Oxford; Visiting Professor of International Finance, Universidad Complutense, Madrid
Has conducted advisory work for various international agencies, including the OECD, the UN Conference on Trade and Development and UNICEF. Research interests include financial and trade linkages between industrial and developing countries, macroeconomics of Latin America, conflict and reconstruction, and the history of economic thought
Annette Hester
Expert on data governance and policy
Annette Hester heads TheHesterView Inc. and focuses on making data more approachable and effective, as well as working on data governance and policy.
Ms. Hester brings decades of experience to her advisory and strategic policy services. She is a member of the Canadian Statistics Advisory Council. Her work includes the development/creation of leading-edge data visualizations for the Canada Energy Regulator, and an interactive energy data platform for the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington DC.
Lucas Kello
Associate Professor of International Relations; Director of the Centre for Technology and Global Affairs; Co-Director of the Centre for Doctoral Training; all at University of Oxford
Specialises in new technologies and their impact on politics and international relations. Recent publications include The Virtual Weapon and International Order (Yale, 2017). Advises on cyber issues, artificial intelligence, robotics, blockchain, and other technological topics.
Dr Rory MacLeod
Independent consultant
Former head of the Global Fixed Income and Currency team at Baring Asset Management in London, also holds a D.Phil in Politics from University of Oxford. From 1985 to 1989, worked in Saudi Arabia as an advisor to the Saudi government, and from 1989 to date has travelled regularly on business to Saudi Arabia.
Robin McConnachie
Independent consultant
Research interests include the role of capital markets in international and domestic debt management, financial regulation issues and the interaction of fiscal and monetary policy. Formerly a UK senior civil servant and Senior Adviser at the Bank of England, in recent years has advised overseas Governments and financial institutions on a variety of financial and business issues. Strong current interest in the role of banks in economic and financial stability.
Dr Terry O'Shaughnessy
Tutorial Fellow in Economics, St Anne’s College, University of Oxford
Research interests include macroeconomic theory and policy, trade policy, and the economics of education. Previously fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. Member of the Editorial Board of the Cambridge Journal of Economics.
Africa
Dr Richard Barltrop
Independent consultant; BA, MPhil, DPhil University of Oxford
Specialises in work on conflict, development and peace in the Horn, the Sahel, North Africa and the Middle East. He has worked for the UN Development Programme in Iraq, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and elsewhere, and on conflict resolution and peacebuilding for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and International Alert. His bookDarfur and the International Community: The Challenges of Conflict Resolution in Sudan (IB Tauris, 2011) won the 2011 Toyin Falola Africa Book Award.
Professor Nic Cheeseman
International Development Department, University of Birmingham
Advisor to policy makers in UK, Brazil and Nigeria as well as to Pan-African Parliament and World Bank. Former director of the African Studies Centre at Oxford University. Joint editor of African Affairs, advisor to the African Progress Panel, member of the advisory board of the UNICEF Chair on Communication Research (Africa). Professor Cheeseman’s doctoral thesis was awarded the Arthur McDougall Dissertation Prize for the best dissertation on elections (2008); most recently received GIGA prize for “Rethinking the Presidentialism Debate”.
Professor Ricardo Soares de Oliveira
Professor of the International Politics of Africa at the Department of Politics and International Relations
Ricardo Soares de Oliveira is Professor of the International Politics of Africa at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford; Official Fellow of St Peter’s College; and a Fellow with the Global Public Policy Institute, Berlin. He is co-editor of African Affairs, the journal of the Royal African Society, and co-director of the Oxford Martin School’s Programme on African Governance. Soares de Oliveira has conducted extensive fieldwork with a focus on the international political economy of African states, especially in regard to the extractive industries, the financial sector, conflict and post-conflict reconstruction, and African-Asian relations. He is the author of Magnificent and Beggar Land: Angola Since the Civil War(2015) and Oil and Politics in the Gulf of Guinea (2007) and co-editor of China Returns to Africa (2008). Soares de Oliveira has worked in the field of governance and the extractive industries for organizations such as the World Bank, the European Commission, Catholic Relief Services, the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs and Oxfam. He has been Visiting Professor at Sciences Po in Paris, a research fellow at the University of Cambridge, a Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC, and a visiting fellow at Yale University.
Asia Pacific
Carlo Bonura
Senior Lecturer, SOAS University of London
Carlo Bonura’s research focuses on comparative political thought and South-east Asian politics.
CP Chandrasekhar
Senior Research Fellow at the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst
CP Chandrasekhar specialises in applied macroeconomics and development economics, with a focus on industry and finance, and is a regular columnist in Indian media.
Dr Rogier Creemers
University Lecturer in the Law and Governance of China, Leiden University
Specialises in the law and politics of contemporary China, with a particular focus on information technology, innovation and cybersecurity. Runs the Cyber China research programme at the Leiden Asia Centre. Recent publications have appeared in The China Journal and Journal of Contemporary China. Dr Creemers also publishes regularly on China-US Focus and ChinaFile.
Catharin Dalpino
Professor at the Edmund A Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University
Catharin Dalpino teaches courses in Asian studies and US foreign policy, and was formerly US deputy assistant secretary of state and a scholar at the Aspen Institute, the Atlantic Council, the Brookings Institution and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Nur Laiq
Public Policy Practitioner
Nur Laiq is a public policy expert who has worked for the UN and held visiting fellowships at the University of Oxford and Georgetown University.
Professor Rana Mitter
Professor of the History and Politics of Modern China, University of Oxford
Specialist in contemporary Chinese politics and the political and cultural history of twentieth-century China. Publications include A Bitter Revolution: China’s Struggle with the Modern World (Oxford, 2004), for which he was awarded the title Times Higher Young Academic Author of the Year 2005, and Modern China: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford, 2008). Professor Mitter regularly broadcasts on BBC radio and History Channel documentaries; his essays and reviews have appeared in the Financial Times, History Today, and the London Review of Books.
Professor Ian Neary
Emeritus Fellow of the Nissan Institute and St Antony’s College Oxford University
Specialist in contemporary Japanese politics. Has published a textbook on Japanese politics and books and academic articles on industrial policy and aspects of human rights implementation in East Asia, focusing on patients’ and children’s rights.
Europe
Dr Othon Anastasakis
Fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford University, and Director of South-east European Studies
Teaches South-east European politics at St Antony’s College. Previously a researcher at the London School of Economics (LSE) and an expert on the EU at the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Studied at the universities of Athens, Columbia (New York) and the LSE, and has written books and articles on sustainable growth in South-eastern Europe, Greek and Turkish relations, Greece’s position in the Balkans, comparative democratisation in South-eastern Europe, EU-Balkan relations and EU conditionality.
Dimitar Bechev
Lecturer, Oxford School of Global and Area Studies
International affairs analyst specialising in the Balkans and Balkan relations with Russia and Turkey, security and energy.
Mihail Chiru
Lecturer in Politics, Department of Politics and International Relations, Oxford University
Main research interests include legislative politics in the EU and democratic backsliding in Eastern Europe.
Dr David Hine
Fellow and Tutor in Politics, Christ Church College, Oxford and Director of the Centre for the Study of Democratic Government, Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford
Main teaching interests cover comparative European government, comparative politics, and European integration. Current research focuses on public ethics and the machinery of public integrity enforcement in western Europe.
Dr Hartmut Mayer
Fellow in Politics and International Relations, St Peter’s College, Oxford and Adjunct Professor in European and Eurasian Studies at Johns Hopkins University, SAIS Bologna.
Main research interests are IR theory, international institutions, foreign policy analysis, comparative regionalism, contemporary European history, the politics of the European Union, and German politics; has also worked as a journalist for various newspapers, radio, TV and news services.
Professor Anand Menon
Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs, King’s College London
Professor of European Politics and Foreign Affairs at Kings College London, co-directing the project ‘Europe in Crisis’. Previously Professor of West European Politics and founding Director of the European Research Institute, at the University of Birmingham. Taught for ten years at the University of Oxford (St Antony’s College). Has held positions at the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques, Boston University, Columbia University and New York University. Author and editor of multiple books on the European Union, France and NATO and published widely in the media, including the Financial Times and Wall Street Journal.
Barbara Piotrowska
Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, Department of Political Economy, King’s College London
Specialises in bureaucratic motivation in democracies and autocracies and during regime transitions, with a regional focus on Central and Eastern Europe.
Sir Ivor Roberts
Former president of Trinity College, Oxford
Formerly British Ambassador to Yugoslavia, Ireland and Italy.
Latin America
Professor Julia Buxton
British Academy Global Professor, Department of Criminology, University of Manchester and Senior Research Associate at the Global Drug Policy Observatory, Swansea University
Julia Buxton has previously served as Professor, Associate Dean and Acting Dean at Central European University, Budapest and Senior Research Fellow and Unit Head of Security Studies in Peace Studies, University of Bradford. She taught at Kingston University and the London School of Economics and led the Venezuela program at Georgetown University in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. Julia directed the British Council INSPIRE three-year capacity building partnership with Fatima Jinnah Women University in Rawalpindi, Pakistan and the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office Program Using Democracy for Peace. She is a longstanding contributor to the Oxford Analytica Daily Brief and panellist at Oxford Analytica’s annual Global Horizons conference.
Dr John Crabtree
Research Associate, Latin America Centre, St. Antony’s College, Oxford
Founder and former Editor of the Oxford Analytica Latin America Daily Brief. Visiting Fellow at the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London (1997-99). Former Visiting Fellow at Sao Paulo University, Brazil and at the Universidad del Pacifico, Lima, Peru. Was also Lima correspondent for The Guardian and The Economist. Author of Peru under Garcia and Fujimori’s Peru: The Political Economy.
Professor Mahrukh Doctor
Professor of Comparative Political Economy at the University of Hull
Mahrukh Doctor is Professor of Comparative Political Economy at the University of Hull. Her research interests include Brazilian political economy, Brazilian foreign policy, and regionalism in Latin America (especially Mercosur and EU-Mercosur relations). She is author of Business-State Relations in Brazil: Challenges of the Port Reform Lobby (New York: Routledge, 2017). Previous positions include Adjunct Professor of Latin American Studies (2005-17) at the Johns Hopkins University (SAIS-Europe) in Bologna, Research Fellow at the Centre for Brazilian Studies at Oxford and economist at the World Bank. She has been a visiting academic at Universidade Federal Fluminense, Universidade de São Paulo and SAIS-Europe. She received her doctorate from the University of Oxford in 2000.
Dr Diego Sanchez-Ancochea
Head of Department at the Oxford Department of International Development
Specialises on the political economy of Latin America with particular concentration on Central America and the Dominican Republic. His research interests focus on the influence of state-society relations on income distribution and long term growth and on the impact of export processing zones on industrial upgrading. He has published papers on these subjects in World Development, the Journal of Latin American Studies and Economy & Society.
Dr Laurence Whitehead
Senior Fellow of Nuffield College, University of Oxford
Also Official Fellow in Politics, Nuffield College, University of Oxford and Director of the Centre for Mexican Studies, University of Oxford. Author of Democratisation: Theory and Experience and Emerging Market Democracies: East Asia/Latin America. Editor of The Journal of Latin American Studies, 1989-2001, and Oxford Studies in Democratisation, 1996-2003.
Middle East / North Africa
Dr Roham Alvandi
Associate Professor of International History, London School of Economics and Political Science
Focuses on the modern history of Iran and the wider Middle East. He is the author of Nixon, Kissinger, and the Shah: The United States and Iran in the Cold War (Oxford University Press, 2014) and has written extensively on the history of Iran’s foreign relations. Previously served on the strategic planning staff in the Executive Office of the UN Secretary-General; and as a Visiting Fellow at the University of Tehran.
Dr Richard Barltrop
Independent consultant; BA, MPhil, DPhil University of Oxford
Specialises in work on conflict, development and peace in the Horn, the Sahel, North Africa and the Middle East. He has worked for the UN Development Programme in Iraq, Libya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and elsewhere, and on conflict resolution and peacebuilding for the Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue and International Alert. His book Darfur and the International Community: The Challenges of Conflict Resolution in Sudan (IB Tauris, 2011) won the 2011 Toyin Falola Africa Book Award.
David Butter
Associate Fellow, Middle East & North Africa Programme
Analyst of politics, economics and business in the MENA region, David has been an associate fellow at Chatham House since August 2012. He was previously regional director for the Middle East at the Economist Intelligence Unit, and prior to that worked for MEED magazine, where he was editor between 2000 and 2002. Chatham House has published his two briefing papers on the Syrian economy, in 2015 and 2016.
Dr Roxane Farmfarmaian
Senior Research Fellow, Centre for the Study of Divided Societies, King’s College
Dr Roxane Farmanfarmaian teaches modern Middle East politics at the University of Cambridge and specialises in Iran and Gulf relations.
Professor Sune Haugbolle
Professor in Global Studies, Roskilde University and former Research Fellow, University of Oxford
Specialises in culture and politics in the contemporary Middle East and is the author of War and Memory in Lebanon (Cambridge UP 2010) and co-editor of The Politics of Violence, Truth and Reconciliation in the Arab Middle East (Routledge 2009), Visual Culture in the Modern Middle East: Rhetoric of the Image (Indiana University Press 2013), and The Arab Archive: Mediated Memories and Digital Flows (Amsterdam 2020). He currently directs a research group on the global history of the Palestinian liberation movement and is Editor for the Middle East Journal of Culture and Communication.
Professor Edmund Herzig
Soudavar Professor of Persian Studies, Oxford, and Fellow of Wadham College, Oxford
Research interests in Iranian history focus on the Safavid period (sixteenth to eighteenth centuries), and the contemporary period (history and politics of the Islamic Republic). He is currently working on a Cambridge History of Modern Inner Asia, on a study of Iranian foreign policy at the turn of the 21st century, and on the place of history in the formation of modern Iranian nationalism.
Helen Lackner
Research Associate, Department of Development Studies, SOAS
After a long career in social aspects of rural development in more than 30 countries, Helen has recycled as an analyst author and speaker on the crisis in Yemen, where she has spent over 15 years living.
North America
Dr Nigel Bowles
Former Director of the Rothermere American Institute, Oxford University; Independent Scholar
Specialist on the US presidency. Books include The Government and Politics of the United States (Palgrave Macmillan, 1998) and Nixon’s Business: Authority and Power in Presidential Politics (Texas A&M, 2005).
Professor Desmond King
Andrew W. Mellon Professor of American Government, Oxford University, and Fellow of Nuffield College
Formerly Fellow and Professor of Politics (now Emeritus Fellow) at St John’s College, Oxford, and Lecturer in Government at the London School of Economics. Has also worked at the University of Edinburgh and held visiting positions at Sciences Po, Cornell and Goteborg University. Research interests in comparative public policy, labour market policy, education and federalism. Publications include Separate and Unequal: Black Americans and the US Federal Government (OUP, 1997) and The Liberty of Strangers: Making the American Nation (OUP, 2004).
Dr Trevor McCrisken
Reader in US Foreign Policy, Politics & Culture, University of Warwick
Visiting Fellow, Rothermere American Institute, University of Oxford. Research interests in US foreign policy, US-Iraq relations, the politics of US nuclear strategy, and the US missile defence system. Author of American Exceptionalism and the Legacy of Vietnam: US Foreign Policy Since 1974 (Palgrave, 2003).
Russia / CIS
Professor Roy Allison
Professor of Russian and Eurasian International Relations and Director of the Russian and Eurasian Studies Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford University
Specialist on the international relations, foreign and security policies of Russia, Ukraine, Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Broader interests include regional conflicts, regionalism, international norms and foreign policy analysis. Previously Reader in International Relations at the London School of Economics, head of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House, and visiting scholar at Moscow State University and the Brookings Institution. Recent publications include Russia, the West and Military Intervention (OUP, 2013), Putin’s Russia and the Enlarged Europe (with Margot Light and Stephen White) (Blackwell, 2006), and Central Asian Security: The New International Context (co-edited with Lena Jonson) (Brookings/Royal Institute of International Affairs, 2001).
Dr Paul Chaisty
Lecturer in Russian Government, University of Oxford
Specialist on Russian politics. Particular research interest in Russian constitutional and legislative politics. Recent publications include Legislative Politics and Economic Power in Russia (Palgrave, 2006) and articles in the Journal of Legislative Studies, Legislative Studies Quarterly, Europe-Asia Studies and Party Politics.
Nuriya Kapralou
Independent consultant on the Russian economy
Specialist on the Russian economy and financial markets. Broader interests include macroeconomic stability, financial regulation and industrial development in emerging economies. Research is published by Oxford Analytica, the Economist Intelligence Unit and the Banker. Previously worked in the corporate finance department at ING Bank, London, structuring debt capital market transactions for European corporates and financial institutions, and in Kazakhstan on a project sponsored by the US Agency for International Development.
Dr Alex Pravda
Fellow of the Russian and Eurasian Studies Centre, St Antony’s College, Oxford
Specialist on Russian politics and foreign policy. Publications include Leading Russia: Putin in Perspective. Has acted as advisor to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Commons and to major corporations doing business with Russia.
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