Experts on countries of origin by country

Juan Sebastián Orozco brings a fresh, forward-thinking approach to the legal field. With over 10 years of experience leading legal teams and consulting for businesses, he has a proven ability to align legal operations with innovation and strategy. His leadership at Octalab and diverse experience across infrastructure, procurement, and corporate law highlight his adaptability, problem-solving mindset, and results- driven approach. Juan doesn’t just understand the law, he transforms how it's applied to support growth, efficiency, and business impact. If you're looking for someone who combines legal acumen with tech-savvy innovation and a client-first attitude, Juan is the kind of expert who will elevate your team and deliver measurable results.

Kefa M. Otiso is a Professor of Geography at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, Ohio, USA. His research interests are in urbanization, globalization, international migration, development, environment, governance, and cultural change in the context of Africa and North America. He teaches a variety of courses in urban, economic, population, and cultural geography, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications. He was the founding president of the US-based Kenya Scholars and Studies Association (KESSA) and is a former Commissioner on Ohio’s New African Immigrants Commission. He is a past editor of the African Geographical Review and has presented papers at many national and international conferences including those organized by the Kenya Scholars and Studies Association, American Association of Geographers, African Studies Association, and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning. He is a frequent media commentator on US, Kenyan, and other international news outlets. He is also the author of Culture and Customs of Tanzania (Greenwood Press, 2013) and Culture and Customs of Uganda (Greenwood Press, 2006), co-author of Population Geography: Problems, Concepts, and Prospects (Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2013), co-editor of African Immigrants and the… Read more

Jessica Ott is an anthropologist and policy fellow whose research and publications have focused on gender, civil society, human rights, health equity, domestic work, and Islam. She has extensive research experience in Zanzibar and has also studied and worked for several years in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

Dr. Ott most recently completed a Science & Technology Policy Fellowship with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, during which she worked as a Human Rights Policy/Research Fellow in the State Department’s human rights bureau and as a Center for Global Health Studies Research Fellow at the NIH. Prior to that, she worked as an international health systems research scientist, specializing in gender and qualitative methods, at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Karen O’Reilly is a country expert who has produced over 300 reports for asylum, criminal, deportation, high profile and country guidance cases in the UK, US, and Canada. Her expertise derives in large part from her extensive experience as a Refugee Resettlement Expert and Protection Officer for UNHCR, beginning in 2006. She is also a writer who has published extensively on refugee-related issues. 

Central & South American Expert - Political Scientist and Associate Professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, this expert focuses on diaspora politics and immigration issues. They have a rich background in both academic research and practical policy, having advised on foreign policy during the 2020 Bernie Sanders campaign. Their insights on labor and immigration have been featured in prominent publications, showcasing their expertise in these critical areas. Recognized for their impactful scholarship, they continue to influence discussions on transnational political dynamics and community engagement.

Dr. Pacifico has been an international lawyer since 1993, with expertise in International Human Rights Law, particularly human rights of refugees and forced migrants, since 1997. She has been an associate professor for Law and International Relations at Maceio, Brasilia, and Joao Pessoa universities since 1997.  She has taught International Law/Relations, Human Rights, and Refugee and Migration Issues for more than two decades. Dr. Pacifico has also presented seminars, given lectures and interviews, published papers, supervised theses and dissertations on these issues, and my own research principally focuses on human rights of legal minorities and human rights protections of refugees and legal minorities in Brazil and abroad.

Currently, Dr. Pacifico is a full-time associate professor in International Relations at Paraiba State University and a full-time collaborator/researcher at the Post-Graduate Program in Comparative Studies on the Americas, at University of Brasilia, both in Brazil, in addition to being a Senior Research Associate at the Refugee Law Initiative at University of London, UK. She was a post-doctoral fellow at the York University Centre for Refugee Studies, Canada (2009 to 2010), visiting research fellow at the Refugee Studies… Read more

Felix Padel was born in London and educated at Oxford University (BA/MA in Classics, Diploma and D.Phil in Social Anthropology) and the Delhi School of Economics, Delhi University (M.Phil in Sociology, and PhD affiliation).

He is the author of several influential books, including Sacrificing People: Invasions of a Tribal Landscape (1995/2010) on colonial rule over Adivasis, and Out of This Earth: East India Adivasis and the Aluminium Cartel (with Samarendra Das, 2010/2020) on the mining industry’s impacts.

From 2010 to 2018, he held academic positions in India, including at the Institute of Rural Management (Anand, Gujarat), the Indian Institute of Health Management Research (Jaipur), and as a Visiting Professor in North-eastern Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (Delhi).

In addition to academic work, he teaches and performs a wide range of music and is based in southwest Wales, UK.

Dr. Imranali Panjwani is the Head of Diverse Legal Consulting, UK (www.diverselegal.com) and a Lecturer in Law at Anglia Ruskin University in Chelmsford, Essex. He has the unique combination of being a lawyer and academic having lived and worked in the UK, Middle East and Australia. His country expert reports draw upon primary country and theological sources with stringent analysis of evidence, law and language. He resides in the UK.

Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at The New School for Social Research with 15 years of professional and academic experience in media, politics, and human rights. Skilled in international affairs, media monitoring, political analysis and consultation, and democracy and governance. Extensive knowledge of key political actors, civil society, and social impact program investors in the Latin American region.  Author of several articles on human rights, elections, populism, and social movements. Professor of Political Science and researcher. I possess extensive expertise in Venezuelan political affairs, both as a local and as an expert in the field. With over 15 years of experience working in human rights and the political landscape of the country, I have developed a deep understanding of its complexities. Additionally, my expertise in Guyana, Bolivia and Ecuador stems from my role as a Program Manager for the International Republican Institute and Political advisor for Canada respectively, where I collaborated with scholars, NGOs, and human rights activists. This experience provided me with valuable insights into human rights, legal issues, and their political implications.

Dr. Nicolas Parent is a Part-time Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa, and Junior Research Fellow at the Tshepo Institute for the Study of Contemporary Africa, Wilfrid Laurier University. Drawing on the disciplines of anthropology, geography, political science, and law, he examines the cultural, spatial, and politico-legal dimensions of persecution and discrimination. He has conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork in Peru, Rwanda, and Turkey, producing original research and providing consulting services in the areas of migration policy, refugee rights, and integration.

As a practitioner, Dr. Parent has taken on active roles in several organizations, including the Association for Solidarity with Refugees, the International Refugee Rights Initiative, Watch The Med, and Columbia University’s Teachers for Teachers Initiative. He is also founder of Praxis Initiative and the Observatory for Human Rights and Forced Migrants in Turkey. He is currently on the Board of Directors of the Montreal-based The Refugee Centre.

The Expert is a North Africa and Middle East specialist and has produced over 400 expert witness reports for the UK courts across a range of countries including Libya, Iraq (including KRI), Egypt, Tunisia and Algeria. The Expert has also served as an expert witness in several terrorism related cases in the UK, US and Ireland; as an expert witness in a Libyan case at the Commercial Division of the UK’s High Court; and as a country guidance expert on Libya in the UK courts (2017). The Expert has also carried out numerous linguistic and nationality assessments and provides translation services (Arabic-English). 

The Expert is an academic researcher and independent consultant whose expertise ranges from the study of Vietnamese and South East Asian socio-political issues to global labour exploitation and migrant workers' rights.

Dr Paszkiewicz is an anthropologist with over 20 years of experience in Refugee Studies, with a geographical focus on the Horn of Africa and Eritrean forced migration in particular. 

Dr. Jean-Baptiste Pettier is a professor of cultural and social anthropology of East Asia at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität in Germany. There, he leads an interdisciplinary Elite Master Program dedicated to the study of decision-making across Asia. He is a French social and cultural anthropologist whose interdisciplinary background includes studies in political science, sociology, and Chinese studies. He has worked in France, Germany, and the US. His primary research activities focus on the subjects of arranged marriage and human-nonhuman relationships, as well as the illicit wildlife trade. He has a theoretical focus on moral sentiments, ethics, and morality in both interpersonal and human-nonhuman relationships, and how they relate to historical, political, and economic conditions. His long-term research field sites are based in China and Madagascar.

The Expert is a Gender & Social Inclusion International Development specialist across multiple global south countries - She holds a Ph.D. in Gender & Postcolonial Studies, University of Sydney, Australia, 2005.

The Expert is an experienced senior consultant and academic with 15+ years in educational program design and management across humanitarian and development sectors, including democracy, education, civil society, and government collaboration in diverse global regions. Her expertise in creating effective development programs with a focus on inclusion and sustainable livelihoods.

Dr Tara Polzer Ngwato is a Founding Director of Social Impact Insights Africa, based in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has twenty-five years of experience in social development research, social change facilitation and evidence-based decision-making support. She specialises in breaking complex concepts and systems, like social cohesion and national reading ecosystems, into clearly defined and measurable indicators and tracking change over time to inform adaptive strategy. She is lead designer and implementer of Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning processes at a national scale (Indlulamithi Barometer on Social Cohesion in South Africa; South African National Reading Barometer; M&E support to national donor and NGO coalitions in foundational literacy and numeracy) institutional strategy scale (Durban University of Technology ENVISION2030 Strategy Tracker) and project level. Tara’s areas of content expertise include human mobility/migration, education, social cohesion/unrest, and community development related to extractive industries (mining and renewable energy production). She is a highly quoted author on migration, social cohesion, education and health, with over 700 citations of her work on Research Gate. Tara holds a BA in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge… Read more

Federica Prina is a Senior Lecturer in Security Studies at Central and East European Studies, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow. Prior to joining the University of Glasgow in 2014, she worked as a researcher at the European Centre for Minority Issues in Germany. Before completing her PhD, she spent ten years as a project manager and researcher in UK-based international human rights organizations, focusing particularly on issues related to freedom of expression and information. Her academic research specializes in the rights of national minorities in the Russian Federation.

Anonza Priyadarshini is an intellectually rigorous and socially conscious legal scholar, blending strong academic credentials with a commitment to legal reform. Her diverse body of publications reflects a forward-thinking engagement with contemporary legal challenges, including AI, corruption, and reproductive rights. With extensive moot, research, and judicial experience, Anonza is poised to contribute meaningfully to international human rights law, legal tech policy, or criminal justice reform research initiatives.