Berkley Center

Jocelyne Cesari holds the Chair of Religion and Politics and is director of research at the Edward Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom; she is a senior fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, where she previously was an associate professor of the practice of religion, peace, and conflict resolution in the Department of Government. She is the T. J. Dermot Dunphy Visiting Professor of Religion, Violence, and Peacebuilding at Harvard Divinity School. Former president of the European Academy of Religion, her work on religion, political violence, and conflict resolution has garnered recognition and awards from numerous international organizations such as the Carnegie Council for Ethics and International Affairs and the Royal Society for Arts in the United Kingdom. She is a Professorial Fellow at Australian Catholic University's Institute for Religion, Politics and Society. She teaches on contemporary Islam and politics at Harvard Divinity School and directs the Islam in the West program. Cesari is a member of the Working Group on Displaced Persons and Hospitality to the Stranger, part of the Culture of Encounter Project.

Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh is the principal investigator leading the Refugee Hosts project. She is a professor of migration and refugee studies and co-director of the Migration Research Unit at University College London (UCL). Her research focuses on the intersections between gender, generation, and religion in experiences of conflict-induced displacement, with a focus on the Middle East.

Dr. Sandra Iman Pertek is an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Birmingham, principle investigator of the “Protecting Forcibly Displaced Women and Girls in the Muslim World” initiative, and gender and protection specialist with over a decade’s experience in humanitarian and international development settings.