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Our Fellows
Peter Chonka
Fellow
Peter Chonka is a Lecturer in Global Digital Cultures at King's College London (UK). His research focuses on communications technologies and political change in the Horn of Africa. He completed his PhD at the University of Edinburgh's Centre of African Studies and previously worked as an interpreter for the Somalia Delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Before that, he was employed by the University of Hargeisa. His peer-reviewed publications are available on his personal website (www.petechonka.com) and he is contactable at
- Email:peter.chonka@kcl.ac.uk
Dr Mohamud Garre
Fellow
Dr Mohamud Garre is a social policy fellow with Somali Public Agenda. His research interests lie in the areas of education, health/social care, human rights, forced migration, and youth unemployment. Dr Mohamud has completed his PhD at the University of Nottingham. He has recently been researching about social development issues that affect the poor and marginalized communities in Somalia.
Lisa Rudnick
Design Fellow
Lisa Rudnick
Design Fellow
Lisa Rudnick is a Design Fellow at SPA Policy Lab. She is a strategic design consultant and Principal and Head of Research at The Policy Lab. She earned her MA in communication from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst where she also completed her doctoral studies in the ethnography of communication (ABD). Formerly a Senior Researcher and Project Manager at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, and Head of the International Peacebuilding Advisory Team at Interpeace, Lisa has also served as Principal Investigator on assignments for UNHCR, ICRC, DFID, Internews, and Non-Violent Peaceforce, among others. She is a co-creator of approaches to local strategies research, evidence-based design, and accountable innovation, which she employs around the globe, with recent work focusing on the weaponization of information and social cohesion. From 2017 – 2019, she was a Visiting Researcher at the Human Rights Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Her research has been published in several journals and edited collections.
Partha Moman
Fellow
Partha Moman is a peace-building and governance practitioner with a focus on civic engagement, social accountability and social research. He currently works as an independent consultant focusing on working with local Somali civil society to deliver impactful civic engagement, policy dialogue and advocacy programmes and research at both the local and national level, including the Somali Youth Development Network (SOYDEN) and the Somali Non-State Actors. Previously, he worked at Africa’s Voices Foundation where he built a programme of work in Somalia that cut across local governance, humanitarian response and durable solutions to find innovative solutions to connect citizens and decision-makers through research, media and technology. Partha has a broader background in policy research, political and conflict analysis having worked as a Programme Assistant at the Africa Programme at Chatham House, and as a Research Assistant at the Centre of Governance and Human Rights, University of Cambridge. He holds an Mphil in African Studies from the University of Cambridge and a BA (Hons) in History from the University of Durham.
Tobias Hagmann
Fellow
Tobias Hagmann is an associate professor of international development at Roskilde University in Denmark. He is a multilingual political analyst with a PhD in public administration from the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He has researched and published on local and national politics in the Horn of Africa, in particular Somalia and Ethiopia, since 1998. His work and analyses have been published by leading academic journals, various news outlets and think tanks including the New York Times, International Crisis Group and the Rift Valley Institute. See: www.tobiashagmann.net
Sahra Koshin
Fellow
Sahra Ahmed Koshin is the Founder and Director of the Somalia Gender Hub and the Puntland Women Writers Association. She is a humanitarian/development expert with over 18 years of professional work experience in research and policy development, program management and institutional capacity strengthening, gender mainstreaming and women’s empowerment program delivery. Sahra led over a dozen knowledge and research studies in Somalia focusing on gender and women in Somalia. She has lived and worked the past 13 years in Somalia with government institutions, research think tanks, and civil society. She is a PhD Candidate studying Somali Diaspora Humanitarianism in Complex Crises at the University of Copenhagen. Sahra has double MA degrees in Advanced Development Studies and in Development Sociology from the Netherlands. Sahra is a blogger, poet and an accomplished author having published 3 literary books and won international literary awards such as the Dutch Rabobank Poetry Award. Her writings can be found on her Google Scholar profile Google Scholar Sahra Ahmed Koshin is the Founder and Director of the Somalia Gender Hub and the Puntland Women Writers Association. She is a humanitarian/development expert with over 18 years of professional work experience in research and policy development, program management and institutional capacity strengthening, gender mainstreaming, and women’s empowerment program delivery. Sahra led over a dozen knowledge and research studies in Somalia focusing on gender and women in Somalia. She has lived and worked for the past 13 years in Somalia with government institutions, research think tanks, and civil society. She is a Ph.D. Candidate studying Somali Diaspora Humanitarianism in Complex Crises at the University of Copenhagen. Sahra has double MA degrees in Advanced Development Studies and in Development Sociology from the Netherlands. Sahra is a blogger, poet, and accomplished author having published 3 literary books and won international literary awards such as the Dutch Rabobank Poetry Award. Her writings can be found on her Google Scholar profile Google Scholar
Ahmed M. Musa
Fellow
Ahmed M. Musa is a postdoctoral researcher at the Diaspora Humanitarianism in Complex Crises research project. He completed his PhD at the University of Nairobi’s College of Agricultural and Veterinary Science. His PhD research focused on institutions in livestock export trade in the Berbera corridor. He has over eight years research experience in the Somali region. Ahmed has several peer-reviewed publications. Besides research experience, he has held management positions at various organizations in Somaliland. His areas of interest include governance, institutions, pastoralism, economic corridors, political economy, and diaspora humanitarianism. He can be reached at ahmedbrown.musa@gmail.com or ahmedm.musa@outlook.com.
Dr. Derek B. Miller
Design Fellow
Dr. Derek B. Miller is a Design Fellow at SPA Policy Lab. He is the Director of The Policy Lab®, established in Boston 2011. He is also Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy at Salve Regina University and Research Associate at the Centre for Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding, The Graduate Institute, Geneva, Switzerland. Miller earned his Ph.D summa cum laude at The Graduate Institute in Geneva, with post-graduate work with Rom Harré at Linacre College, Oxford. He earned his MA in national security studies from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown and BA from Sarah Lawrence College. Miller worked as Senior Researcher and Project Manager at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR) for almost a decade on both small arms and light weapons matters and evidence-based policy design. Miller is also a critically-acclaimed novelist and the author of Norwegian by Night, The Girl in Green, American by Day, the science fiction epic Radio Life, the Audible Original novel Quiet Time, and the forthcoming How to Find Your Way in the Dark. Miller and his family currently reside in Oslo, Norway.
Abdishakur Hassan
Fellow
Abdishakur Hassan is an urban policy & service design fellow at Somali Public Agenda. He is the founder and lead consultant of Abyane, an Urban & Geospatial consulting firm based in Somalia. He earned an MSc. in Urban planning and Geography from Gothenburg University, Sweden. In addition, he also holds an MSc. in Geoinformation Science and Land administration from ITC, Twenty University in the Netherlands. Formerly, he served the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) as a GIS Expert and worked on GIS, Urban planning, and Land administration assignments. He is also a technical instructor at Coursera & Udemy and the co-author of the book “Geospatial data science quick start guide“. His technical writings and blogs have gathered more than 1 million readers worldwide in his Medium Publication(https://shakasom.medium.com/).
Manar Zaki
Fellow
Manar Zaki is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Sababi Institute, a Somali-based organization conducting research on behalf of both academics and international development organizations. As a researcher, Manar specializes in designing creative and context-specific data collection tools and methods to address difficult-to-measure questions. She has managed over 50 data collection initiatives in the Horn of Africa and now trains other researchers and organizations on data collection methods and designing data quality assurance systems in complex security and humanitarian environments. Manar’s background also includes substantial work in program evaluation and learning, bringing expertise in the design and implementation of robust MEL frameworks for initiatives working governance, stabilization, and access to justice. Manar holds a Masters in Development Practice from Trinity College Dublin and a BA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Yasin Ismail
Fellow
Yasin Ahmed Ismail is a researcher and policy analyst specializing in governance, security, and conflict issues. He previously directed research and analysis on governance, conflict, and security issues in Afghanistan, Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya, and the U.S. Following the Taliban's takeover in 2021, he served as a Safety Advisor and led a 22-person field office in Southeastern Afghanistan, where he oversaw security and conflict analysis, as well as safety advisory services to humanitarian communities in four provinces, three of which shared a border with Pakistan. Prior to that, he served as the Research Lead for the Somali Dialogue Platform at the Rift Valley Institute in Nairobi, overseeing the research and analytical components of a political dialogue program focused on contentious issues in Somalia's post-conflict political settlement. Yasin also held various positions in Somalia, Kenya, and the USA, including leading on political risk analysis on East Africa and Zambia at Eurasia Group in Washington, DC, and East Africa analysis at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS), also in Washington, DC. Yasin holds a Master's in Public Policy from Sciences Po Paris and a Bachelor of Arts in Politics and International Affairs from Wake Forest University. During the 2022-2023 academic year, he was the Dean's Graduate Fellow at the Department of Political Science at Ohio State University, conducting research and taking courses at the Ph.D. level. His work has appeared in Al Jazeera English, World Politics Review, World Policy Journal, and openDemocracy.
Mohamed Abdimalik
Fellow
Mohamed Abdimalik is the founder and executive director of Jaantus, an independent nonprofit media development organization dedicated to advancing data-driven public interest journalism in Somalia. With over 14 years of experience, Mohamed is a highly accomplished communications professional, specializing in data journalism, media development, and strategic communication. He holds a degree in political science and journalism. You can find some of Mohamed's writings on his data blog at: https://www.kuurgal.com/. For any inquiries, feel free to reach out to him via email at: abdimalik@tutanota.com.
Brenton
Fellow
Brenton
Fellow
Brenton is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Sababi Institute, a Somali-based organization conducting research on behalf of both academics and international development organizations. He has been conducting research in the Horn of Africa since 2014: first as a Ph.D. student studying the salience of ethnic identity in Kenyan politics, and – since 2016 – leading large-scale quantitative evaluations, political economy studies, and other research in Somalia, especially related to democratization, governance, and stabilization. His work in Somalia has focused on applying the best possible research methods in contexts where standard practices break down, particularly in terms of sampling and survey design. He studied at the University of Virginia, where he received an M.A. and is a doctoral candidate in Foreign Affairs.