Postdoctoral Research Fellow, University of Sydney Dr. Jianni Tien is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies at the University of Sydney. Jianni works at the intersection of science and technology studies, the feminist environmental humanities, and sociology of health. She researches the ontologies and epistemologies at work in our Anthropocene era and the power structures that underpin them, including questions of situated and enforced Western knowledges. Jianni's doctoral research examined the affective power of scuba diving in cenotes - naturally occurring sinkholes - and how to harness such affective power in order to ethically respond to the complex dilemmas of the Anthropocene. Her current research projects include the social dimensions of innovations in nanosensing biotechnology; human-microbial relations, and the politics of the transcorporeal in lung cancer stigma.
Associate Professor, Howard University Josephine Jarpa Dawuni is an Associate Professor of Political Science. She is a qualified Barrister at Law from the Ghana School of Law and holds a Ph.D. in Political Science at Georgia State University. She is the editor of Intersectionality and Women's Access to Justice in Africa (Lexington, 2022), Gender, Judging and the Courts in Africa: Selected Studies (Routledge, 2021), International Courts and the African Woman Judge (Routledge, 2018) (edited with Akua Kuenyehia) and Gender and the Judiciary in Africa: From Obscurity to Parity?( Routledge, 2016) (edited with Gretchen Bauer). She is the founder and Executive Director of the Institute for African Women in Law.
Senior lecturer, University of Cape Town Julie Copelyn is a paediatric infectious diseases subspecialist. She received her MBBS from the University of Sydney in 2007, before returning home to South Africa. She holds an MSc in Paediatrics and Child Health (Global Health) from University College London and is a member of the founding committee of Young WSPID. Her interests include paediatric HIV and TB, vaccine preventable illnesses and antimicrobial stewardship.
Associate Professor of Political Science, Kansas State University John A. Fliter is an associate professor of political science at Kansas State University. He received his B.A. in political science from California State University, Northridge, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, College Park. He has written articles on freedom of speech, church-state relations, the jurisprudence of Justice David Souter, and prison reform litigation. His articles have appeared in The Journal of Political Science Education, Law and Society Review, Southeastern Political Review, Journal of Church and State, The Justice Professional, and the Free Speech Yearbook. His recent book, Child Labor in America: The Epic Legal Struggle to Protect Children, was published by the University Press of Kansas in May 2018. His other books include Fighting Foreclosure: The Blaisdell Case, the Contract Clause, and the Great Depression, co-authored with Derek Hoff, University Press of Kansas (2012), and Prisoners’ Rights: The Supreme Court and Evolving Standards of Decency, Greenwood Press (2001). Fliter’s research interests include the Supreme Court and the New Deal, judicial policy making, civil rights and liberties, and law, politics and literature. Professor Fliter received the 2010 K-State Presidential Teaching Award and he was named the 2013-14 Coffman University Distinguished Teaching Scholar. He teaches courses on U.S. politics, the judicial process, administrative law, constitutional law, civil rights and liberties, and law, politics and literature. Fliter serves as co-advisor to the Model UN Team. He is a military history buff, an avid fan of K-State sports, and a long-suffering Cleveland Indians/Guardians fan.
Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in the Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University Jon has a broad interest in natural history and grew up in Brisbane keeping and breeding native fish and collecting butterflies. Professionally, he has over 35 years of experience as an aquatic ecologist working on Queensland’s streams, rivers, lakes and wetlands. He completed his PhD in 2002 at Griffith University with research on the environmental and biotic factors influencing the composition of the fauna inhabiting pools in rainforest streams. He commenced working for the Queensland Government in 1996 researching the ecology of aquatic fauna, particularly macroinvertebrates and fish. He has a particular interest in the development and application of methods and tools to link environmental stressors to ecological responses, including ecosystem responses to flow regime modifications and environmental variability over both short- and long- time scales. Areas of focus include intermittent, dryland rivers and wallum wetlands such as those on Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island). He currently holds a leadership role in the Queensland Department of Environment and Science in a team which provides innovative scientific research, monitoring and assessment to underpin the sustainable management of Queensland’s water resources. He is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow in the Australian Rivers Institute, Griffith University.
Professor Politics and International Relations, Florida International University Professor Clark specializes in the state-society relations of African polities and the international relations of sub-Saharan Africa. He is co-editor of Political Reform in Francophone Africa (1997, with David Gardinier), editor of The African Stakes of the Congo War (2002), author of The Failure of Democracy in the Republic of Congo (2008), and co-author of the Historical Dictionary of Congo (2012, with Samuel Decalo) and Africa’s International Relations (2018, with Beth Whitaker). He has also published over fifty articles and book chapters, including articles in / African Affairs/, the Journal of Democracy,/ the Journal of Modern African Studies/, Comparative Studies in Society and History, African Security, and the Africa Spectrum. During the 1999-2000 academic year he was a Fulbright lecturer and research scholar at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, and he made numerous research trips to the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo between 1990 and 2012. In the summer of 2014, Professor Clark was a Fulbright Specialist consultant at the Mbarara University of Science and Technology, where he was also Visiting Professor. He was awarded, with three collaborators, a grant by the American Political Science Association to organize a two-week workshop on Conflict and Political Violence in Nairobi, Kenya, in July 2015. He is currently studying the foreign policies of African states. Professor Clark served 6 years (2002-2008) as Chairperson of the International Relations Department at FIU and another 4 years (2016-2020) as the Chairperson of the Politics and International Relations Department at FIU.
