Violent Infrastructure

Ariel Otrubais a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance and teaches in the International Peace and Conflict Resolution Program at Arcadia University. As a feminist political geographer and conflict resolution specialist, her research brings embodied, emotional, and posthumanist insight to the study of violence, political ecology, geopolitics, borders, and migration in the South Caucasus. Her publications have appeared in several edited volumes and Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space.

Max O. Stephenson Jr.currently serves as a Professor of Public and International Affairs and the Director of the Institute for Policy and Governance at Virginia Tech. His research and teaching interests include leadership, civil society and democratic theory, social change processes, international development, human rights and refugees, and peacebuilding. He is the author or editor of thirteen books or monographs, more than ninety refereed articles and book chapters, and more than four hundred commentaries on democratic politics in the United States and elsewhere.

Yannis A. Stivachtisis a Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech and holder of the Jean Monnet Chair. He also serves as Director of the Center for European Union and Transatlantic Studies (CEUTS), which has been designated by the European Commission as a Jean Monnet Center of Excellence. His research and teaching interests include human security and EU migration and asylum policy and humanitarian and peace operations. He is the author or editor of thirty-four books, monographs, and special journal issues, as well as numerous articles and book chapters.

Nino Dzotsenidzeis a Senior Research Analyst at the California Center for Rural Policy. Her professional background ranges from a decade of work in the international nonprofit sector to public and private higher education institutions in Georgia, Kuwait, and the United States. She has been involved in various research projects studying minority groups, marginalized and vulnerable populations, internally displaced people, and refugees. She holds an M.Ed. in International Education Policy and Management from Vanderbilt University, and a Ph.D. in Comparative and International Education from Lehigh University. She has authored dozens of academic publications in the field of education.