Visiting Scholars
The Buffett Institute’s Visiting Scholars are academics from around the world who collaborate with the Buffett and University communities.
Learn about past Buffett Visiting Scholars.
Buffett Visiting Scholars
Mkhaimar Abusada
Visiting Lecturer, Political Science and the Middle East and North African Studies Program
Contact:
m.abusada@northwestern.eduMkhaimar Abusada is a visiting lecturer in residence from October 1, 2024 to September 30, 2025. An Associate Professor of Political Science at Al-Azhar University-Gaza and the former chair of the university's political science department, Mkhaimar’s primary research topics include Palestinian politics and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. He received his PhD from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Roberson Alphonse is a visiting lecturer at the Medill School of Journalism in residence from January 2025 to December 31, 2025. 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.
Umut Aydemir is in residence from October 1, 2024 to April 1, 2025 and is hosted by G. Jeffrey Snyder, Professor of Materials Science & Engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering. Umut’s research includes high-tech materials, thermoelectric energy and materials with unusual properties. He has authored over 115 research articles and has been recognized with several prestigious awards, including the Science Academy's Young Scientist Award (2018), the Turkish Science Academy's Outstanding Young Scientist Award (2019), the Middle East Technical University Prof. Dr. Mustafa Parlar Foundation Research Incentive Award (2021) and the Koç University College of Science Outstanding Faculty Award (2024). His office is within the Department of Materials Science.
Ayşenur Dal is in residence from August 15, 2024 to July 1, 2025 and is hosted by the Erik Nisbet, Owen L. Coon Endowed Professor in Policy Analysis and Communication at the School of Communication. Her research examines the social-psychological dynamics of ordinary citizens' online political engagement under authoritarian governance. While at Northwestern, she will work on a comparative survey experiment project to collect data in the United States and Türkiye to study citizens’ responses to online privacy threats. Her office is within the Department of Communication Studies.
Pierre Francois
Visiting Scholar, Buffett Institute for Global Affairs
Haman Mana is a Cameroonian journalist and author. He will spend his time at Northwestern continuing to run Le Jour, one of Cameroon’s largest daily newspapers, and working on a book about Cameroon’s slide toward authoritarian rule, from which he was forced to flee following the paper’s investigation of corruption and influence peddling by a powerful media mogul. Haman has joined us as a Visiting Lecturer with a joint appointment in the Medill School of Journalism through December 2024. His office is in 720 University Place at Northwestern Buffett.
Alice Motion is in residence from April 2 to April 18, 2025 and is hosted by Kelli McHugh, Associate Professor of Instruction in Theatre at the School of Communication. Alice is a Professor of Science and Culture at the University of Sydney and leads the SCOPE Research Group. Their work focuses on science democratization, open-source drug discovery and citizen science. Alice won the 2020 Australian Museum Eureka Prize for Promoting Public Understanding of Science and writes the “Citizen Chem” column for Chemistry World Magazine. Carine Ollivier is in residence from May 1 to June 14, 2025 and is hosted by Bruce Carruthers, Professor of Sociology at the Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences. Her research spans the sociology of professions, economic sociology and the sociology of work and organizations. She has studied various professional fields, including architects and interior designers, engineers and construction economists and insurance actuaries. More recently, her work has focused on the livestock industry in the Brittany region of France and the profession of authorship. Carine is co-director of the editorial board of Travail et Emploi, a peer-reviewed journal and co-director of the "Le Sens Social" collection at Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Mattia Peretti
Visiting Scholar, Buffett Institute for Global Affairs
Mattia Peretti will be in residence from May 13 to June 18, 2025 and is hosted by Jeremy Gilbert, Knight Professor in Digital Media Strategy at the Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications. Peretti is a learning experience designer, project manager and facilitator and the founder of News Alchemists, a movement that helps redefine journalism and its role in society. In 2024, he was a Knight Fellow with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), working on finding new paths to sustainability for journalism through new solutions and user-centricity. Previously, Mattia was the manager of JournalismAI, a joint initiative of Polis, the journalism think-tank at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and the Google News Initiative, aimed at empowering news organizations to use artificial intelligence responsibly.
Mika Tamai
Visiting Scholar, Weinberg College of Arts & Sciences and Buffett Institute for Global Affairs
Contact:
mika.tamai@northwestern.eduKeyman Modern Turkish Studies Postdoctoral Fellows
Find more information on Keyman Postdoctoral Fellows.Önder Eren Akgül is the 2024–2026 Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at Northwestern University. Akgül is a historian of capitalism, political economy and the environment in the Ottoman Empire and the Eastern Mediterranean. He is currently working on his first book manuscript, A Global Hinterland: Crisis and the Order of Accumulation in Late Ottoman Greater Izmir, an intertwined history of global capitalism, Ottoman political economy and local labor and ecology. Akgül is concurrently developing two new research projects—the first exploring the history of extractivism in the Ottoman mountains and the second focusing on the global history of the left in Turkey during the long 1960s. Akgül is a regular producer for the Ottoman History Podcast. Before coming to Northwestern, Akgül taught classes on the history of Modern Turkey and global capitalism at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, and International Studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Feyza Burak-Adli
Courtesy Appointment, Keyman Modern Turkish Studies Program at the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs
Contact:
feyza@northwestern.edu
