Alexander Etkind
The Head of the OHPA
Alexander joined the Department of International Relations in 2022. He previously taught at the European University Institute at Florence (2013-2022), the University of Cambridge (2004-2013), and the European University at St Petersburg (1999-2004). Alexander defended his PhD in Russian cultural history in Helsinki (1998), and supervised more than 30 PhD students in Europe. His current interests are the political aspects of the Anthropocene, global decarbonization and security in Eastern Europe. In the past, he was also involved in memory studies, European intellectual history, empires and decolonization, and various aspects of Russian history. A Fellow of King's College Cambridge, Etkind was the Leader of Memory at War: Cultural Dynamics in Poland, Russia and Ukraine, a European research project (2010-13). He is the author of Eros of the Impossible. The History of Psychoanalysis in Russia (Westview Press 1996); Internal Colonization: Russia's Imperial Experience (Polity Press 2011); Warped Mourning: Stories of the Undead in the Land of the Unburied (Stanford University Press 2013); Roads not Taken. An Intellectual Biography of William C. Bullitt. (Pittsburgh University Press 2017); and Nature's Evil: A Cultural History of Natural Resources (Polity Press 2021). Alexander coedited Remembering Katyn (Polity 2012), Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe (Palgrave 2013) and Cultural Forms of Protest in Russia (Routledge 2017). His new book, Russia against Modernity, will be released by Polity in April 2023.
Valeriia Hesse
Research Coordinator
Valeriia Hesse is a certified PRINCE2 project manager with extensive experience in international educational event and conference management, eager to improve and innovate. She is interested in the role of advanced technologies in combating climate change as well as futures and foresight. Valeriia has a long-standing expertise in nuclear policy and diplomacy, including international organizations and regimes in nonproliferation. Ms. Hesse is a Fulbright scholar and obtained her Master's degree in International Policy from the University of Georgia (USA) and has a Bachelor's and a Master's in International Relations from Odesa I.I. Mechnykov National University (Ukraine).
Marc Flessa
Research Associate
For the OSUN Hub for the Politics of the Anthropocene Marc is researching how Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine changed the political standpoints and discourses of Europe’s Green Parties towards foreign policy, security and energy. He is an alumnus of the CEU Department of International Relations where he did his MA from 2021 to 2023. His Thesis titled Governmentality of and in global climate governance: The experiences of non-state actors at the UNFCCC Conferences of the Parties (COP) passed with distinction. During his study time at CEU he also participated in the Bard Globalization and International Affairs Program in New York, interning with the Clara Lionel Foundation. Before his time at CEU, he studied at the University of Groningen, University College Fryslân (2018-2021), completing his Bachelor in Global Responsibility and Leadership. He majored in Political Science, Economics and Energy with a Minor in Global Affairs at the University of Leiden.
Ayansina Ayanlade
Postdoctoral Researcher
Ayansina Ayanlade is a Research Fellow in the Department of International Relations. Before joining the CEU, he was an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, and a researcher at the University of Vienna, Austria. He holds a PhD from King’s College London, University of London, UK, and a wide range of academic experience in Nigeria, Kenya, the USA, Norway, Austria, and the United Kingdom; and has worked at the highest levels of professional politics and policy. He has contributed to research in the areas of climate change impact assessment, adaptation options, and mitigation strategy studies in Africa. His research interest lies in many aspects of the Anthropocene, focusing on critical issues on climate change; understanding of observed climate change impacts, indigenous and local knowledge of climate change and the influence of both national and international climate change negotiations; and application of Remote Sensing and GIS to land-atmospheric interactions.
Johanna Gautier Morin
Postdoctoral Researcher
Johanna Gautier Morin is a historian of capitalism and economic knowledge from a global and intersectional perspective and currently a Research Fellow in the Department of International Relations at CEU. She was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence, as part of the ERC-funded research program ECOINT on the history of globalization and international economic thinking, and a Teaching Fellow in the Global History Lab program at Princeton University. She received her PhD in International History from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva and graduated from the Ecole Normale Supérieure in Paris. Her book manuscript traces the global history of financial deregulation from a gender and postcolonial perspective in the 1970s and 1980s. She has published on the debt crisis, economic reforms, and the history of economic ideas in Algeria, Chile and Mexico. For the Open Society Hub for the Politics of the Anthropocene (OHPA), she develops her new project on the critical history of international economic indicators.
Stefan Stoyanov
Junior Research & PR Associate
Stefan Stoyanov is currently a research associate with the OHPA studying his Master’s in International Relations at Central European University, focusing in International Security & Political Economy. His research interests lie in Russian and Eurasian studies, with a current focus on environmental politics and petroaggression. He is presently researching Russian economic preparations for the war with Ukraine and the role of energy politics and fossil fuels. Stefan obtained a BA in International Relations from the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow.
Conall Hirsch
Junior Research & PR Associate
Conall Hirsch is currently a research associate with the OHPA studying his Master’s in International Relations at Central European University, focusing in International Climate Politics. His research specializes in Environmental politics and policy, the link between Securitization and Climate politics, decarbonization and energy politics, and disinformation studies. He is currently conducting research into the connection between disinformation and online climate politics via the internet and social media. Conall holds a BA in English and Philosophy from the University of Leeds (UK).