Denise Garcia

Professor of Political Science and International Relations, Northeastern University

Roberta Buffett Visiting Professor of International Studies in Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

Denise Garcia is a professor at Northeastern University in Boston and a founding faculty member of its Experiential Robotics Institute. Garcia was previously appointed to the Global Commission on Responsible Artificial Intelligence in the Military and served her term until 2026. Before joining Northeastern, she worked for three years at the World Peace Foundation, part of the Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs at Harvard University. She is formerly a member of the International Panel for the Regulation of Autonomous Weapons (2017–2022), of the Research Board of the Toda Peace Institute (2020–2023), and of the Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers Global Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous & Intelligent Systems (Autonomous Weapons Group). She is currently a member of the Institute for Economics & Peace in Sydney, Australia, and an advisor to the Global Challenges Foundation in Stockholm, Sweden. Garcia collaborates closely with projects in her home country, Brazil.

• She will teach a course through the Roberta Buffett International Studies Program in fall 2026.

Kathy Im

Director of the Journalism & Media Program, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Buffett Distinguished Practitioner in Residence

Kathy Im manages the MacArthur Foundation's global portfolio investing in nonprofit journalism, documentary storytelling, and civic media. Kathy is a recognized leader in philanthropy and media and the author of several editorials and essays about press freedom, media diversity, and the connection between media and democracy. She is currently the Chair of the Advisory Board for the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, a member of the Harris Council of the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy Studies, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Steering Committee of the European Journalism Funders Forum, and the Advisory Board for the Media Forward Fund based in Germany. She was previously a Board Member of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Media Impact Funders, the Center for Asian American Media, and Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy. Kathy earned her Master’s degree in Public Policy from the University of Chicago and her Bachelor’s degree in Government Studies from Smith College.

Aïda Muluneh

Renowned Afrofuturist photographer

Buffett Distinguished Visiting Practitioner 

Aïda Muluneh is an Ethiopian photographer, educator, and cultural entrepreneur known for her Afrofuturist photography that is featured in the permanent collections of prestigious institutions such as the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art. Muluneh received the European Union Prize at the Rencontres Africaines de la Photographie in Bamako, Mali, in 2007; the CRAF International Award of Photography in Spilimbergo, Italy, in 2010; and a CatchLight Fellowship in San Francisco, USA, in 2018. In 2020, she was honored with the Royal Photographic Society Award in Curatorship. In 2019, Muluneh became the first Black woman to co-curate the Nobel Peace Prize exhibition and returned the following year as a commissioned artist for the prize. Her commissioned projects use creativity to educate and advocate on topics related to the environment and health. As an educator and cultural entrepreneur, she continues to develop projects with local and international institutions in Ethiopia and Côte d’Ivoire. She has also been recognized as a change-maker in Africa, shifting perceptions of the continent. She will visit in April 2027. 

Vijayendra (Biju) Rao

Former Lead Economist in the Development Research Group of the World Bank 

Buffett Distinguished Scholar-Practitioner in Residence

Vijayendra (Biju) Rao is a scholar of development whose work bridges research and practice. Rao studies how social, cultural, and political contexts shape the lives of people living in poverty. Trained as an economist but deeply influenced by anthropology, sociology, and political science, he is known for integrating qualitative and quantitative methods to make economics more reflexive, contextual, and grounded in lived experience. His early work helped establish the economics of dowries, domestic violence, and sex work as fields of empirical inquiry. His 2004 edited volume with Michael Walton, Culture & Public Action, catalyzed influential interdisciplinary debates on aspirations, inequality traps, and cultural heritage. A long-standing contributor to research on political economy and democratic decentralization in India, Rao has recently advanced new methods for analyzing large-scale qualitative data. His experimentation with AI and natural language processing has produced novel insights into aspirations, well-being, and narrative expressions of agency among people in low-income settings. He is the co-author, with Ghazala Mansuri, of Localizing Development: Does Participation Work?, and with Paromita Sanyal, of Oral Democracy: Deliberation in Indian Village Assemblies.

Lilith Verstrynge

Associate Professor of International Relations, Sciences Po; Spain’s former Secretary of State for the 2030 Agenda 

Buffett Distinguished Visiting Practitioner

Lilith Verstrynge is an Associate Professor of International Relations at Sciences Po in Paris, France, and Spain’s former Secretary of State for the 2030 Agenda. By the age of 30, she had risen from student political organizer to parliamentarian, working to connect domestic policymaking with left-wing social movements and the United Nations’ sustainable development goals. At the age of 31, she announced her retirement from politics and departure from Podemos, the political party she had dedicated her career to building.

• Northwestern University undergraduates are invited to join Professor Verstrynge for afternoon tea on Thursday, October 22 at 5:00 p.m.
• She will engage in a public conversation with Iza Ding, Associate Professor of Political Science, at lunchtime on Friday, October 23.  

Sheldon Yett

UNICEF Representative to Sudan

Roberta Buffett Visiting Professor of International Studies in Northwestern University’s Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

Sheldon Yett has served as the UNICEF Representative to Sudan since August 2024. A national of the United States, he has worked for UNICEF since 1997 and has extensive experience in managing both development and humanitarian emergency programs in Burundi, Somalia, Kosovo, and UNICEF’s emergency division in New York. Yett has served in multiple assignments as UNICEF Representative, including to Armenia (2005–2008), Macedonia (2008–2013), Liberia (2013–2016), the Pacific Islands Multi-Country Office (2016–2021), and Bangladesh (2021–2024). Before joining the UN, he worked as a journalist.

• He will teach a course through the Roberta Buffett International Studies Program in fall 2026.

Dasha Zarivna

Chief Corporate Communications Officer, DTEK Group; Former Advisor on Communications to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine

Buffett Distinguished Visiting Practitioner

Dasha Zarivna is Chief Corporate Communications Officer at DTEK Group, the largest private investor in Ukraine's energy sector. She is a Ukrainian communications strategist and former government advisor to the Head of the Office of the President of Ukraine as well as Ukraine’s National Security & Defense Council. She also served as Chief Operating Officer (COO) of the presidential initiative Bring Kids Back UA from 2023 to 2025. As COO, she focused on issues related to the deportation of Ukrainian children, international justice, humanitarian diplomacy, and global advocacy. In the private sector, she founded and led Vector Strategic Communications Agency and Vector Media, working across strategic communications, public affairs, and media development. She will visit in late winter quarter 2027.

Roberson Alphonse

Head of National News at Le Nouvelliste

Visiting Lecturer, Medill School of Journalism and Roberta Buffett Institute for Global Affairs

Roberson Alphonse is a visiting lecturer at the Medill School of Journalism in residence from January 2025 to June 30, 2026. Roberson is a Haitian media professional and serves as the head of national news at Le Nouvelliste, the newsroom director at Magik 9 and the producer of the Dèyè Kay program. He reports on sensitive subjects and challenges facing the country, including corruption, human rights, and socio-political crises in Haiti. In addition to his investigative journalism, Roberson works to train the next generation of journalists in Haiti and is working on his first book, an anthology retracing his 20 years of journalism.

Feyza Burak-Adli

Independent researcher

Buffett Visiting Scholar

Feyza Burak-Adli is a cultural anthropologist of religion exploring the intersections of Islam, gender, class, and feminist politics in contemporary Muslim societies. Bringing together ethnography, historical analysis, Sufi theology, and critical social theory, she examines how Muslims inhabit multiple and sometimes competing ethical and epistemic worlds, generating alternative forms of religious authority, gendered subjectivity, and political belonging. Her book manuscript, Other Muslim Women: Toward an Epistemithical Plurality in Religion and Gender (University of North Carolina Press), draws on long-term fieldwork with a gender-mixed Turkish Sufi order led by a female shaykha and explores alternative forms of Muslim womanhood beyond conventional binaries of piety and feminism. Her work has appeared in the International Journal of Middle East Studies Culture and Religion, and The Oxford Handbook of Religion in Turkey. In 2024, she received the Best Paper Prize from the Society for the Study of Muslim Ethics.

Tati Lathipatud Durriyah

Associate Professor and Head of the Master of Arts in Education Program, Universitas Islam Internasional Indonesia (UIII)

Buffett-EDGS Visiting Scholar

Tati Lathipatud Durriyah (Tati D Wardi) is visiting through the Roberta Buffett Institute's Equality Development & Globalization Studies (EDGS) Program. Her research centers on sociocultural theories of learning, digital literacy, and the integration of artificial intelligence in educational contexts, with particular attention to teacher agency in Global South settings. Her current work extends an ecological framework of teacher agency, grounded in Biesta and Priestley's theorization, into questions of how educators in Indonesia engage with generative AI tools. During her appointment as a Buffett-EDGS Visiting Scholar, Durriyah will engage with Northwestern University's Learning Sciences Program, collaboratively inquiring with faculty on the intersections of sociocultural learning theory, AI integration, and educational equity. 

Zahra Khoshk Jan

Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences

Buffett Visiting Scholar

Zahra Khoshk Jan is a political sociologist and researcher specializing in the sociology of religion who will be in residence with the Department of Religious Studies and the Roberta Buffett Institute from September 2026 through June 2027. Zahra’s research primarily focuses on “the political sociology of religion,” an interdisciplinary field examining the mutual influences between religion and politics, including political religion and emerging forms of implicit religion in the modern era. She has published multiple papers in Persian and English on the interaction of politics and religion. As a social constructionist, Zahra is skilled in qualitative research methods, including discourse analysis, critical discourse analysis, phenomenology, content analysis, and grounded theory.

Angela Kurniadi

Lecturer, Researcher, and Research Coordinator, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia

Buffett-EDGS Visiting Scholar

Dr. Angela Kurniadi, MD, PhD, is visiting through the Roberta Buffett Institute's Equality Development & Globalization Studies (EDGS) Program. She studies public health, HIV and other infectious diseases; reproductive health; and maternal and child health. She is actively engaged in teaching, research, and community service initiatives aimed at improving population health and advancing evidence-based healthcare practices. Dr. Kurniadi has published research on HIV knowledge and health communication among women in Indonesia, including “Sources of HIV Information and Women's HIV Knowledge in Southwest Sumba, Indonesia: A Cross-Sectional Study with Mediation Analysis” in BMC Public Health. As a research coordinator, she supports the development and implementation of research activities, fosters interdisciplinary collaboration, and promotes research excellence within Atma Jaya. Through her scholarly work and leadership, she contributes to the development of evidence-informed health policies and programs that address public health challenges in Indonesia and other low- and middle-income settings. 

Salomé Lamas

Filmmaker, visual artist, and educator

Buffett Visiting Scholar

Salomé Lamas is a Portuguese filmmaker. She has been developing an artistic practice that explores the embedded relation between representation and the narrative power of social reality while proposing something different. The multidisciplinary ethos underpinning her artistic endeavour continually challenges the boundaries of visual narrative to foster critical dialogues that prompt audiences to confront the intricacies of the human experience and broader societal dynamics, focused on migration, mostcolonialism, and a critique of capitalism. This research-based practice perpetuates a legacy of intellectual inquiry and artistic innovation and critically examines the social and economic roles of media production in the stages of development, production, exhibition, distribution, and archive. Its outcomes range from films to audiovisual installations and publications.

Maria Lipman

Political analyst and commentator

2026 Roberta Buffett Visiting Professor of International Studies

Maria Lipman is a 2026 Roberta Buffett Visiting Professor in International Studies. She is a political analyst and commentator whose work focuses on state‑society relations, media, and the politics of history in Russia. Her recent publications in Foreign Affairs include co‑authored articles such as “The Limits of Putin’s Balancing Act: What the Kremlin Will Sacrifice in Pursuit of Victory in Ukraine” and “Exiles Cannot Save Russia: But the West Can Learn From—and Should Support—Those Who Fled Putin” as well as “Forever Putinism: The Russian Autocrat’s Answer to the Problem of Succession.” Lipman has served as editor or deputy editor of various Russian‑ and English‑language publications over the past three decades. From 2003 to 2014, she was an associate at the Carnegie Moscow Center, where she edited the journal Pro et Contra. She is a frequent commentator in international broadcast media and has written extensively on Russian affairs for both Russian and US outlets, including The Washington Post (2001–2011) and The New Yorker online (2012–2017).

Roberto Mazza

Historian

Buffett-Keyman Visiting Scholar

Roberto Mazza is a historian specializing in the modern Middle East who will be in residence with the Roberta Buffett Institute's Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program from July 2026 through May 2027. Mazza has made contributions to the field of urban history and the study of Jerusalem during the late Ottoman and British Mandate periods and hosts the Jerusalem Unplugged podcast, which explores various aspects of Jerusalem's rich history and contemporary issues. He also serves as a regular host for the New Books Network, where he interviews authors of recent publications in his areas of expertise. Mazza authored two books focusing on Jerusalem during the First World War period: Jerusalem: From the Ottomans to the British (2009) and Jerusalem in World War I: The Palestine Diary of a European Diplomat (2011). He is currently teaching a course on the global history of conspiracy theories.

İlkim Büke Okyar

Associate Professor of Political Science, Yeditepe University

Fulbright Senior Visiting Scholar, Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program

İlkim Büke Okyar is a Fulbright Senior Visiting Scholar in residence at the Roberta Buffett Institute's Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program through November 2026. During her residency, she is developing her book The Path Not Taken: Post-Imperial Democratic Transition & the Free Republican Party as a Case, which examines how post-imperial state-building shaped democratic transition and government–opposition relations in early Republican Turkey. Her research examines post-imperial democratic transitions, government–opposition relations, and the institutional legacies of state formation, with a particular focus on modern Turkey and the Middle East. Her previous work has investigated nationalism, state-building, and the construction of national identities through political discourse and visual culture. Methodologically, she combines historical institutionalism with discourse analysis and visual discourse analysis to examine how political ideas, institutions, and identities evolve over time.

Catherine Panter-Brick

Bruce A. & Davi-Ellen Chabner Professor of Anthropology, Health, & Global Affairs, Yale University

Buffett Visiting Scholar

Catherine Panter-Brick is a medical anthropologist whose research integrates health, conflict, and intergenerational peace. Panter-Brick also collaborates on evaluating the responsible use of artificial intelligence tools in humanitarian settings, particularly for healthcare delivery for children and families. These initiatives build on two decades of research with Afghan and Syrian families, including evidence that the epigenetic marks of war trauma extend across generations. At the Roberta Buffett Institute, Catherine looks forward to engaging with colleagues interested in systems approaches to global challenges, intergenerational policy, social movements, and institutional reform.

Jongyun Ra

Career diplomat and Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA)

Buffett-NSAIL Visiting Scholar

Jongyun Ra is in residence at the Roberta Buffett Institute and McCormick School of Engineering's Northwestern Security & AI Lab (NSAIL) from September 2026 through September 2028. Prior to joining Northwestern, he worked for the government of the Republic of Korea for over 22 years, where his roles included deploying new information technology promotions, managing critical security policies, and responding to cyber-incidents. Since 2012, he has served as a career diplomat with a technical background, with his most recent post being Consul at the Consulate General of the Republic of Korea in Chicago. He is also a Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) who integrates high-level diplomatic strategy with technical security frameworks. At NSAIL, he will research the impact of AI and quantum computing on international hegemony and cybersecurity.

Bronwyn Rae

Pediatric anesthesiologist

Buffett Visiting Scholar

Bronwyn Rae is in residence through July 15, 2027. Rae received her medical degree from Sydney University and her Master in Public Health from Northwestern University, where she specialized in pediatric anesthesiology. She has a long-standing interest in anesthesia in under-resourced environments and has worked in the Solomon Islands, Pakistan, and Inner Mongolia with local anesthesia providers. Since 2013, she has worked closely with anesthesia faculty in Tanzania to improve anesthesia training there. She was honored for this work with an award for services to pediatric anesthesia at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society of Anesthesiologists in Tanzania.

Salvatore Simarmata

Senior Lecturer in Communication, Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia; Director, Atma Jaya Institute of Public Policy

Buffett-EDGS Visiting Scholar

Salvatore Simarmata will is in residence from October 1–31, 2026, through the Roberta Buffett Institute's Equality Development & Globalization Studies (EDGS) Program. He is hosted by Erik Nisbet, Owen L. Coon Endowed Professor in Policy Analysis & Communication. Simarmata directs the Atma Jaya Institute of Public Policy, a research institute dedicated to advancing evidence-based policymaking for a sustainable future. His research focuses on political communication, particularly how digital platforms, automation, and the hybrid media system reshape strategies of attack politics, drive the circulation of disinformation, and influence democratic competition. In addition, his work examines how political actors and institutions as well as the media shape policymaking processes and narratives, and the decline of the deliberative public sphere in Indonesia.

Alyas Widita

Assistant Professor, Monash University, Indonesia

Buffett-EDGS Visiting Scholar

Alyas Widita is visiting through the Roberta Buffett Institute's Equality Development & Globalization Studies (EDGS) Program. He coordinates the Master of Urban Design program at Monash University. His scholarship examines urban systems, employing rigorous methodological approaches to inform credible, sustainable, and just visions for future urban life. His body of work spans three interrelated strands: evaluating the causal impacts of large-scale urban interventions and policy rollouts, examining emerging technologies and their integration into urban systems, and exploring questions of equity in cities. His research appears in leading journals including the Journal of Planning Education & Research, Travel Behaviour & Society, and Regional Science Policy & Practice, among others. Bridging scholarship with practice and policy, Professor Widita has advised international organizations including the World Bank and the Korea Transport Institute.

Mert Koçak

Keyman Postdoctoral Fellow

Contact: mert.kocak@northwestern.edu

Mert Koçak is the 2025–2027 Keyman Postdoctoral Fellow. They are an anthropologist of law and bureaucracy specializing in transnational migration, migration industries, and queer migration. Their dissertation examined how Turkey has become a pivotal transnational zone for governing queer migration, where local NGOs—funded by the Global North—mediate between Turkey’s restrictive refugee regime and international narratives of sexual orientation and gender identity. Their current book project, The Continuum of Queer Migration: Exploring Deservingness in the Afterlife of Resettlement, builds on this research to investigate queer refugees’ post-resettlement lives in the EU and Canada. 

Lalu Özban

Keyman Postdoctoral Fellow

Contact: laluozban@northwestern.edu

Lalu Özban is the 2026–2028 Keyman Postdoctoral Fellow. They are a scholar-practioner who curates, translates, archives, researches, produces, and exhibits trans, queer, and feminist audiovisual media. They completed their PhD in Film & Digital Media at the University of California Santa Cruz with designated emphases in Feminist Studies and Critical Race & Ethnic Studies. Their practice-based dissertation project, Koli Sinemaları: A Trans/Feminist Research-Archive-Curation, explores the experiences of trans audiences in adult movie theaters in Turkey from the 1990s to the 2010s. The project theorizes adult movie theatres that welcomed trans audiences as koli cinemas, as archives of sexuality, and as sites of sex work, collective film-watching, and community-formation. The project develops “research–archive–curation” as a transfeminist methodology for producing knowledge through embodied, collective, and creative practices. Their postdoctoral project Resisting and Existing with Lubunya Gullüm creates spaces for queer and trans activist films from Turkey and proposes exhibition, curation, and discussion of films as practices of queer and trans world-making. Özban's films and film programs have been presented internationally, including at the Pink Life QueerFest, Epidaurus Festival Athens, Sinema Transtopia Berlin, the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, and Tenderloin Museum, among others. They are a co-founder and member of transnational film cooperative timetides.