Profiles of CEU Researchers

Islam; historiography

Prior to joining CEU faculty, Brandon Anthony worked as advisor to the Hungarian Nature Conservation Institute as well as a park supervisor/biologist with a Regional Conservation Authority in Canada. He has conducted research on nature conservation and community livelihoods in Canada, South Africa, Malawi, Romania and Hungary.

Research Interest
Contemporary history, historical anthropology, historiography

Alexander Astrov received his MA in History from Central European University. He obtained his PhD in the Department of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Károly Bárd is professor, chair of the Human Rights Program and co-director (with Renáta Uitz) of the clinical specialization at CEU Legal Studies Department. He started his career at the Faculty of Law of Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. Between 1990 and 1997 he served as vice-minister and later as deputy state secretary in the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Hungary.

Rositsa Bateson teaches in the Higher Education Policy and Management Stream of the Department of Public Policy. She is also Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Higher Education Management and Policy at the University of Southampton, UK. As Vice President of Student Services at CEU, she is responsible for the planning and delivery of an integrated enrollment management and student services program for an international student community, including recruitment, admissions, enrollment planning and financial aid, student records and registration, student life, career advising, alumni affairs, and student research.

Robin has been teaching academic writing for graduate students at CEU since 1999, and has also taught undergraduate academic writing at Corvinus University, Budapest, since 2004. Prior to coming to Budapest, he lived and worked in Spain, Portugal, Hong Kong, and Colombia. At CEU Robin works with the Legal Studies, IRES, History and Nationalism departments. Robin has delivered outreach courses on academic writing for masters, PhD students or professional researchers at the Hungarian Central bank and in other countries such as Lithuania, Estonia, Holland, and training for junior faculty and PhD students in Russia and FR of Yugoslavia. Robin represents the CEU and the Centre for Academic Writing in the FIESOLE Group. His interest, apart from academic writing, is teacher training. His hobbies include sports and games of all types but he now has two young children.

Deniz Bingol McDonald after receiving her Master’s degree from Warwick University, UK, has been writing her PhD dissertation on EU conditionality and restructural reforms in Slovakia, Romania and Turkey, in Central European University- Budapest. She published in Millennium and European Journal of Public Policy on civil society-state relations and financial sector reforms in EU candidate countries. Her other research interest include political economy of property rights reform,Turkish foreign policy, regulatory politics in EU states and public opinion in EU accession countries in Central and Eastern Europe.

Thilo Bodenstein holds a Dr in Comparative Political Science and International Relations from the University of Konstanz (Germany). He joined the Department of Public Policy in 2009. His research includes international political economy and international development.

Dorothee Bohle is Associate Professor of Political Science at Central European University, Budapest. Previously, she was a junior research fellow at the Social Science Research Center, Berlin, and also held a visiting position at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University. She obtained her PhD from Free University of Berlin in 2001. Her research interests are located at the interface of international and comparative political economy, with a special focus on East Central Europe. She is the author of Europas Neue Peripherie: Polens Transformation and Transnationale Integration (Muenster, Westfaelisches Dampfboot, 2002), and her articles are published in Capital and Class, PROKLA, Studies inComparative International Development, West European Politics and Competition and Change. Together with Bela Greskovits, she is currently working on a book on capitalist diversity in East Central Europe.

      I have worked in he field of bioarchaeology for thirty years, articularlrly in he field of achaeozoology and the study of worked osseous materials from animals. I have a number of projects going with regard to the various past societies uses objects made from such materials in social discourse. Related to this, I am also generally interested in various and often contradictory attitudes towards animals in the medieval past.

László Csaba was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1954. A graduate of Budapest University of Economics /1976/. In 1976-87 he was associated with the Institute for World Economy of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, finally as senior fellow. He earned his second MA/dr.univ.oec/ in 1978 ath the BUES and his Ph.D in 1984 at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences/also published in book format/.

Nenad Dimitrijevic is an associate professor at CEU Political Science Department. He received his BA diploma (1978), MA (1983), and PhD in constitutional law (1986) from University of Novi Sad, School of Law. His research interests include constitutional theory (constitutional design, post-communist constitutionalism, minority rights, constitutional patriotism), and political theory (political legitimacy, transformative justice).

Anil Duman has received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her research interests include political economy, economic development, welfare state policies, and comparative economic systems. Currently, she has been specializing on labour market institutions, social security regimes, and their interactions.

Thomas Fetzer joins the department in December 2009. He received his Ph D from the Department of History at the European University Institute Florence in October 2005 with a thesis on British and German trade union politics at Ford and General Motors since the late 1960s. In 2006 he was a visiting fellow at the Max-Planck Institut für Gesellschaftsforschung in Cologne and taught in several programs of US-based universities in Florence. In 2007 and 2008 Thomas was a Marie Curie post-doctoral researcher at the London School of Economics, and in 2009 he was Assistant Professor for Industrial Relations at the University of Warwick and also Visiting Lecturer at CEU.

Attila Folsz received his Ph.D. in International Relations and European Studies from the Budapest University of Economics. Attila Folsz is a political economist, specialized on post-communist transition and the EU, with a special focus on enlargement and monetary unification.

Ancient and Postclassical Greek, Classical and Medieval Latin;
Late Antiquity;
Ancient Sexualities

Late antique and medieval philosophy & theology

Tom Glaser retired from thirty years’ service with the European Commission in 2005. His tasks included six years dealing with the ACP countries and, since 1993, with the enlargement process.His final job before posting to Budapest was concerned with public information covering 28 countries involving a budget of €150 million. He ended his tour in Budapest as Head of the EU Representation. Since 2006, he has been a visiting Professor at CEU, a member of the advisory board of the Institute for Social and European Studies at Koszeg and a board member of Generation Europe Foundation in Brussels.

Marie-Pierre Granger received a PhD in Law from the University of Exeter (UK) in 2001. She joined CEU in 2004. Her teaching and research interests include the legal and political aspects of European integration, judicial process, comparative public law, environmental and social law and policy. On maternity leave from April 2009 until March 2010.

Michael Hamilton holds an LL.B. from the University of Kent at Canterbury, an MA in Irish Studies from Queen's University in Belfast, and a PhD from the School of Law at the University of Ulster. His primary research interest is in freedom of assembly and expression during periods of transition.

John joined the Writing Center as Director in 1998, and has worked with students of International Relations, History, Political Science, Legal Studies, Sociology, Environmental Science and Public Policy. He has also been involved in developing writing programs and centers in various countries in the region. Prior to joining CEU he also worked in the Baltic States, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic, as well as in Germany, China, Finland and Turkey.

Daniel is a PhD student of Political Scinece at Central European University in Budapest and a junior fellow at the Institute of Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. His research focuses on the effectiveness and inequality of education, and the political economy of education. He has published in English in Educational Research and Evaluation and in Prospects, and also in several Hungarian publications such as the Education in Hungary 2006.

History of everyday life in the Middle Ages;
history of visual culture;
gender history

Jessica Jewell is a PhD student at CEU interested in national energy security strategies, risk and uncertainty analysis of future energy systems, and mitigating risk in energy system transitions. In addition to her studies, she is a contributing author to the Global Energy Assessment. Prior to coming to CEU she completed the Erasmus Mundus program Masters program in Environmental Sciences Policy and Management during which time she studied at CEU, Lund University, and University of the Aegean. Before her current work in Energy and the Environment, she studied graduate from Brown University with a degree in Geology and worked as a geologist at a consulting engineering firm.

Achim Kemmerling got his PhD in Political Science at Free University Berlin. Before coming to CEU he worked at the Social Science Research Centre Berlin (WZB) and the Jacobs University Bremen. His research interests include the political economy of social and labour market policies, taxation and development.

Co-founder and first chairman of the Alliance of Free Democrats, Hungary’s liberal party. Took an active part in the process of the transition to democracy in 1989/90. Withdrew from politics in 1991. At present, professor of political science and of philosophy at the Central European University, Budapest. In 1983, guest lecturer at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris). In 1988/89, visiting professor at the New School for Social Research (New York). In the Fall of 1996, 2000, and 2002, visiting global professor at the New York University School of Law.

Religious & cultural history of the Middle Ages;
the Middle Ages in modern (nationalist) discourse

Professor at Legal Studies Department, Central European University, since 1992, professor and chair of the Labour and Social Law Department at Eötvös Loránd University, Faculty of Law (Budapest) with interruption since 1991 up to date. Taught subjects: labour and social law at ELTE, European labour law, gender and law, equal opportunity law as well as comparative social protection at CEU.

Born and educated in Budapest, Hungary, I also sent a fair amount of time for study, teaching or research in England, Scotland, North America, Germany and Italy. I have been a member of CEU's History Department since its first MA program in 1992 (and was its head from 1999-2005 and 2006-2008). My acedemic interests focus on intellectual history, especially political and historical thought, inter-cultural communication and reception, and more recently the history of scientific knowledge production, in the early-modern period and the Enlightenment.

Professor at the Nationalism Studies and Jewish Studies Program at the Central European University, Hungary, and since 2002 he has been a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Ethnic and Minority Studies at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.

Renata is Probationary Doctoral Candidate at Political Science Department, Public Policy track. She received her first MA in Psychology from the Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia. Her second MA was awarded by CEU in 2003 where she studied at Department of International Relations and European Studies. Her research interest concerns the higher education policy. Renata has over 10 years of experience in this area first as student leader and later as civil servant and in recent years as analyst in Slovak Governance Institute with which she is affiliated also during her studies. She has published dozens of articles in Slovak media on the topic of higher education and was very active in advocacy in regard to higher education issues.

Ottoman history

Lucia is a graduate of the IRES department (2006) and currently a doctoral student at the same department. Her dissertation focuses on analyzing the impact of transition on migration dynamics in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). She has participated on various research projects which analyzed economic transition, institution building and labor markets in CEE.  

Viktor Lagutov joined CEU in 1997.

Web-page: http://www.ceu.hu/envsci/syslab/

Marvin Lazerson is professor of higher education policy in the Department of Public Policy, Central European University and professor emeritus, University of Pennsylvania.  He holds A.B. and M.A. degrees from Columbia University in New York City and a PhD in history from Harvard University.  He is a widely published scholar in the ares of educational history, higher education, and social policy.  A member of the National Academy of Education (U.S.), he is past president of the History of Education Society.  He has taught at Harvard University, Stanford University, and the University of British Columbia, as well as the Penn, where he also served as dean of the Graduate School of Education and the university's interim provost.  In addition to teaching at CEU, he coordinates the higher education policy stream in the Department of Public Policy.

Levente (Levi) received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 2006 where he also studied Survey Research and Methodology. He has held visiting positions in multiple departments of the Eotvos Lorand University and the University of Zagreb, Faculty of Psychology. He has taught a number of workshops on missing data. Predominantly a methodologist, Levi’s research strives to find new analytical strategies to complex problems and research questions in any field of science.

Liviu Matei is CEU's Chief Operating Officer and a Professor in the Department of Public Policy.

Late antiquity; history of religion

Stefan Messmann is Professor of International Business Law at Central European University (CEU) in Budapest, Hungary, since 1998. He also served as Academic Pro-Rector of CEU between 1999 and 2003.

Zoltan Miklosi received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from ELTE University, where he specialized in political and moral philosophy. His research areas concern questions of political obligation, distributive justice, and the problem of global justice. His current work focuses on the role of institutions in specifying the requirements of justice, and on how different distributive concerns regarding process and outcome may be integrated within a unified theory of distributive justice.

Ph.D. (Moscow State University): Head of Department, Director of UNEP GEO Collaborating Center: State of the environment and pollution problems in the countries of the region; environmental policy; global environmental issues, sources of environmental information.

Peter Molnar is Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Media and Communication Studies at Central European University, from 1990 to 1998 a member of the Hungarian Parliament, one of the drafters of the 1996 Hungarian media law, legislative advisor since 2002, has taught and lectured at numerous universities around the world since 1994. In 2007, the staged version of his novel, Searchers, won awards for best alternative play and best independent play in Hungary.

Daniel Monterescu studies ethnic relations and urban space in bi-national (mixed) towns as part of a larger project on identity, sociality and gender relations in Mediterranean Cities. His previous projects examine the construction of Arab masculinity and the narration of life stories in Jaffa. His publications feature articles in IJMES, Journal of Mediterranean Studies, Theory and Criticism, Israeli Sociology, Megamot, Public Culture, Identities, World Development and contributions to numerous edited volumes including Islamic Masculinities, and Re-approaching the Border. He is author (with Haim Hazan) of Twilight Nationalism – a bilingual (Arabic-Hebrew) study of autobiographical narratives of Palestinian and Jewish elderly, and editor (with Dan Rabinowitz) of Mixed Towns, Trapped Communities (Ashgate Publishing, 2007).  

Ms. Nora Mzavanadze is half-Lithuanian, half-Georgian by origin and comes from Lithuania. Before starting MS and PhD studies, Nora has worked for the Lithuanian Green Movement (in 'Aukuras' and 'Zemyna' regional branches) and for the biweekly newspaper 'Zalioji Lietuva' (Green Lithuania). Since then she has collaborated with the Ministry of Environment of Lithuania, Public Policy and Management Institute (Lithuania), UNDP Lithuania, Lithuanian National Radio and Television, 'CSR network' consulting company (UK), weekly opinion newspaper 'Atgimimas' (Lithuania), CEU Business School (Hungary) and UNEP through CEU GEO collaborating center.

Boldizsár Nagy read law and philosophy at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest and pursued international studies at the Johns Hopkins University SAIS Bologna Center. Besides the uninterrupted academic activity both at the Eötvös Loránd University (since 1977) and the Central European University (since 1992) he has been engaged both in governmental and non-governmental actions. He acted several times as expert for the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Council of Europe and UNHCR. He is a co-founder and board member of the European Society of International Law and member of the editorial board of the International Journal of Refugee Law and of the European Journal of Migration and Law.

Andrej Nosko, PhD student at Political Science Department, researches coping strategies of small, open, transitional economies of Central Europe with their energy import dependence. His theoretical focus is on issues of energy, security, and government-corporate relations. Andrej's experience developed while living in 6 countries, and besides academia, working in private, NGO as well as governmental sectors. Before returning to CEU, Andrej worked for the European Commission in Brussels in the field of internal security.

Irina Papkova received her B.A. from Hamilton College in 1999; an MA in Russian and East European Studies from Georgetown University in 2002; and completed her Ph.D. in Comparative Politics from Georgetown University in 2006. She has taught at Georgetown, George Washington University, and the Russian State Pedagogical University of A. I. Gerzen. Her research interests include religion and politics, nationalism and ethnic conflict, the politics of development and democratization, and the cultural impact of globalization; and the political implications of historical memory.

Markian Prokopovych is an associate research fellow at Pasts Inc., Center for Historical Studies. His teaching and research focuses on cultural history of East Central Europe, and more broadly on urban history and modern European cultural history. He is a member of the International Committee for the European Association for Urban History (EAUH) and is involved in the editorial of several journals in the field.

Currently, CEU Provost/Academic Pro-Rector, Howard Robinson is also Professor of Philosophy and Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Liverpool. He mainly specializes in metaphysics, including the philosophy of religion, and the philosophy of mind: he also has an interest in the history of philosophy.

Thomas has been teaching academic writing at CEU since 1996. In that time he has taught and consulted with students from most departments, including Economics, History, International Relations and European Studies, Legal Studies, Philosophy, Political Science, and Sociology & Social Anthropology. Before coming to CEU he taught English as a Second and Foreign Language in San Francisco and with the Peace Corps in Hungary. He has a B.A. from Villanova University, an M.A. from Arizona State University, and is currently completing work on a PhD in English Renaissance Literature at Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem in Budapest. His work has appeared in Shakespeare Survey, Shakespearean International Yearbook, and Notes & Queries.

Tamas Rudas is Dr. rer. nat. (mathematics), Eötvös Loránd University; Candidate of Science (mathematics), Hungarian Academy of Sciences. He completed his Habilitation (sociology), Eötvös Loránd University and holds a Széchenyi Professorship. He is also a Doctor of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (sociology). Tamas Rudas had visiting positions at Pennsylvania State University; University of Toledo; Educational Testing Service, Princeton; Center for Surveys, Methodology and Analysis, Mannheim; Fields Institute, Toronto; University of Graz, Central Archive for Empirical Social Research, Koeln; University of Erfurt; University of Ljubljana; University of Washington. His research interests are in multivariate statistics, analysis of categorical data, survey methodology, and applied statistics.

András Sajó is a judge at the European Court of Human Rights, Strasbourg. He took his position on February 1, 2008. He is a University Professor at CEU and Global Visiting Professor of Law at New York University Law School. Professor Sajó was the founding dean of Legal Studies at CEU. In addition to his stature as a prominent constitutionalist, he is also a distinguished scholar in the human rights field, including media regulation.

Vera is a PhD student at Political Science department, studying industrial development in East and Southern Europe under the influence of foreign direct investment. Her interests include development and foreign investment, dynamics of industrial development, labour relations and political economy of transition. Vera is also working as a research assistant in a number of international projects dealing with trajectories of industrial relations and socio-economic development models in Europe.

Before coming to CEU Anna studied Hungarian literature and linguistics and political theory at the Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest. After gaining these degrees she worked at the Hungarian Parliament and in the Mayor's Office in the Municipality of Budapest. Following three years of practice she decided to continue her studies, and gained an MA at the Political Science Department of CEU with a thesis entitled "Biopolitics of Hunger: Understanding World Hunger through the Concepts of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben". Anna's doctoral research conducted at the Department of International Relations and European Studies focuses on the possible forms of resistance against global biopolitical governance.

Eniko is a probationary PhD student in DPP. She earned a BA from Middlebury College (2002) in Political Science and Spanish, and an MSc from the London School of Economics (2006) in Comparative Politics. Eniko has served as a Junior Professional at the World Bank, in the area of public administration reform and anti-corruption in Latin America. She has also worked for the European Commission, in DG Development and for the EC Delegation to Nigeria. More recently, she observed elections in Ghana and Ecuador for the Carter Center and the EU. For her dissertation, she plans to study the relationship between externally-regulated anti-corruption commissions, donor agencies and local politics in Africa. Her broader research interests include the politics of foreign aid and EU development policy.

Professor Nick Sitter is the Head of Department. His research interests include comparative European public policy, regulation, party systems, and Euroscepticism. Recent books include Understanding Public Management (Sage 2008) and Europe’s Nascent State Europe’s Nascent State (Gyldendal 2006).

Stephen Stec first taught business law at CEU in 1992 and returned in 1999 as an adjunct in ENVSCI. For almost 20 years he has done fieldwork with international organizations in Europe, Central Asia, Africa and China, including UNEP, UNDP, OSCE, UNECE, EBRD, REC and CEELI.  He participated in the negotiation of the Aarhus Convention and other MEAs and contributed to environmental peacebuilding efforts in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in the Sava River Basin. From 2006-08 he served on the Managing Board of the ENVSEC initiative (www.envsec.org). He is a fellow of the Institute for East European Law and Russian Studies at Leiden University (NL), a member of the World Justice Forum and IUCN CEL, and serves on the editorial board of the European Energy and Environmental Law Review. In 2007 Mr. Stec was a co-recipient of the Rule of Law Award.

Diane Stone was founding director of the CEU's Master's Program in Public Policy (MPP).  From 2004 to 2008, she was Marie Curie Chair in the Center for Policy Studies.

Sara Svenson is a PhD candidate at CEU’s Department of Public Policy, researching policy formation and implementation in European cross-border regions. Her dissertation project is supervised by Andrew Cartwright. Before enrolling in the PhD program, she worked as Research Project Officer at the CEU Center for Policy Studies. She holds an MA in political science from CEU (1999) and a BA in journalism from Stockholm University (1997). She occasionally contributes to broadcast and print media in Sweden, and has worked at different locations as a news journalist for the public service broadcasting company Sveriges Radio.

Alina’s research focuses on the conflict and coexistence of large carnivores and people in the Romanian Carpathians. She is particularly interested in spatial and temporal patterns of conflict as well as the attitudes of various interest groups towards carnivores and their management. Before joining the PhD programme Alina studied and worked in Romania, Hungary, South Africa and the UK. Her professional experience spans the business, academic and NGO sectors and includes a diversity of roles from consulting, teaching and capacity building, to ecological surveys and project management. In her spare time she enjoys reading, hiking in the mountains, travelling and photography.

Dane Taleski is a PhD Student at the Political Science Department. His major research interest is focused on political parties. In his dissertation he is looking at the development of parties in post-conflict societies. The EU and EU' enlargement are his minor research interest. His work has been published in couple of edited volumes and some peer journals. Coming from Macedonia he is actively present in the public and political life of the country, where he writes a weekly column in one od the daily newspapers.

Sergio Tirado Herrero (Spain, 1978) holds a BSc in Environmental Science and an MSc in Global Change and Sustainable Development from the University of Alcala (Madrid). His experience in Central and Eastern Europe dates back to 2001, when he joined the Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC) as a project assistant. Between 2002 and 2008 he has been researcher in the Environmental Economics Research Group at the University of Alcala, in projects ranging from the cost-benefit analysis of strategic energy programmes act to the economic valuation of Spain’s ecosystem services. Since September 2008, he is a PhD student at Central European University (CEU) and a member of 3CSEP. The preliminary title of his PhD dissertation is “Fuel poverty in Hungary. An assessment from the perspective of the residential sector”.

Balázs Trencsényi has been teaching at CEU since 2004. He also serves as Co-Director of Pasts, Inc., Center for Historical Studies. He is Associate Editor of East Central Europe, published by Brill. His main fields of interest are: history of political thought in Central and Southeastern Europe, history of historiography and nationalism studies. Currently he is Principal Investigator of the international research project, "Negotiating Modernity. History of Modern Political Thought in East Central Europe," supported by the European Research Council.

Having obtained an MA in Political Sciences and International Relations (KU Leuven) and an MA in Nationalism Studies (CEU), in 2009 turned his attention to Environmental Studies. His research focuses on issues of legitimacy, social cohesion and mobilisation in environmental politics. In particular, he is concentrating on how these issues play in U.S. environmental politics.

Dr Vedres teaches sociology at CEU since January 2004. My primary interests are economic sociology, social networks, historical sociology, postsocialism, and methods. I received his PhD in sociology from Columbia University. This is a link to my website.

Ph.D. (Warwick University): Director of PhD program; environmental philosophy and political theory; academic writing for environmental sciences and policy.