Skip to main content

Experts on countries of origin by country

Chiovenda, Andrea

The Expert is an adjunct assistant professor of anthropology at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi, UAE. He received his PhD in anthropology from Boston University in 2015. His ethnographic fieldwork research was carried out in Afghanistan from 2009 until 2013, and again in 2016, and focused on the psychological impact of cultural norms of masculinity among Pashtun men. In 2020,

The Expert published a book based on this research, entitled Crafting Masculine Selves: Culture, War and Psychodynamics in Afghanistan (Oxford University Press, 2020), which won the 2021 Boyer Prize for contributions to psychoanalytic anthropology, from the Society for Psychological Anthropology. Additionally, he published several articles and book chapters in peer-reviewed academic journals and edited volumes on conflict, violence, and gender relations in Afghanistan. Since 2016, The Expert has been carrying out original ethnographic research in Greece, investigating the psychological impact of the migratory experience among Afghan refugees in the country.

Occupation: Adjunct Assistant Professor
Countries of expertise: Afghanistan, Greece, Italy, Pakistan

Kerr Chiovenda, Melissa Skye

The Expert is an assistant professor of anthropology at Zayed University, Abu Dhabi. She has been conducting research in Afghanistan since 2009. The Expert’s main research in Afghanistan concerned ethnic Hazara civil society movements and the transmission of cultural trauma. Her earlier research in Afghanistan concerned Pashtun women who were working with Western NGOs. She has a PhD from the University of Connecticut in anthropology, an MA from Georgetown University in Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies with a Certificate in Refugees and Humanitarian Crises, and a BS in Russian Language and Literature from Georgetown University. Since 2016, She has been conducting research on the political identity of Afghan, mainly Hazara, refugees in Greece and Italy. She has also started projects concerning the Hazara genocide of the late 1800s, and sexual violence historically and currently experienced by Hazara women.

Prior to working in academia, The Expert was a high school teacher in South Los Angeles. She also worked for United States exchange programs in Russia, was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, and spent a summer teaching children at an organization in Nablus, West Bank.

Occupation: Assistant Professor, Zayed University, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences
Countries of expertise: Afghanistan, Greece, Italy, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan

Tognato, Carlo

The Expert is currently Fellow of the Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at the University of Minnesota as well as Faculty Fellow at the Center for Cultural Sociology at Yale University. He was for two years Senior Policy Fellow at the Schar School of Policy and Government, George Mason University, for over a decade  Associate Professor at the Department of Sociology of the National University of Colombia in Bogota, and for four years Director of the Center for Social Studies at the same university. He holds a PhD in Political Science from UCLA, an MPhil in International Relations from the University of Oxford, and a BA in Economics from Bocconi University in Milan, Italy. Since 2014 his research has focused on processes of civil reconstruction and civil degradation.

Occupation: Researcher
Countries of expertise: Colombia, Italy