Bank of Experts

Toria Ficette is director at Brussels Prevention & Security, the Brussels regional administration in charge of developing and executing the regional master plan for prevention and security. Among other prevention and security topics, she has been coordinating the Brussels network of practitioners working on PVE/CVE issues. In this context, the regional administration supports local actors in developing their CVE/PVE policies in expertise, resources, and tools. She holds a master’s degree in international relations and peace studies and a master’s in educational sciences. Before joining BPS, she has been working for security agencies where she specialized in counter-terrorism and analysis of global terrorist networks.

Maik Fielitz is a researcher at the Jena Institute for Democracy and Society working on right-wing extremism, protest and social movements as well as on regulation of social media platforms. He studied political science, history and peace and conflict studies in Jena, Marburg and Athens and is finishing his PhD on the rise of neo-Nazism in Greece at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Maik Fielitz is a Non-Resident Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg, Doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, and International Expert for Greece at the Center for the Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo (C-Rex).

Larry  Gbevlo-Lartey  is Executive Chairman of the Human Security Research Center. Holder of a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Ghana, a law degree and a bachelor’s degree in administration, Mr. Gbevlo-Lartey took part in various peace missions, including the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), the United Nations peacekeeping force in Croatia and in Bosnia and Herzegovina (UNPROFOR) and the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). From 2009 to 2014, he worked as National Security Coordinator for Ghana. Mr. Gbevlo-Martey is an associate member of the UNESCO-PREV Chair.

Throughout his career, Martin Geoffroy, a sociologist, has worked in New York, Winnipeg and Moncton. Professor of Sociology at Cégep Édouard-Montpetit since 2013, he holds a doctorate and a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Montréal and a bachelor’s degree in communication from the University of Québec in Montréal (UQÀM). For over twenty years, he has focused his research on extreme right-wing and right-wing movements in Québec, the United States and France. He is the author of more than twenty-five articles and book chapters, and has co-edited six special issues of scholarly journals and five books. He was an assistant professor of sociology at the Université de Saint-Boniface from 2004 to 2006, and at the Université de Moncton from 2006 to 2009. In 2016, Mr. Geoffroy founded the Centre d’expertise et de formation sur les intégrismes religieux, les idéologies politiques et la radicalisation (CEFIR). He is a senior member of the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security & Society (TSAS) and the International Team for Evaluation of Radicalization Prevention (ITERP). Mr. Geoffroy is an associate member of the UNESCO-PREV Chair.

Paul Gill is Professor of Security and Crime Science at University College London. He has published more than 80 papers on the behavioural underpinnings of terrorism. He has received research funding (including co-applications) from sources including the office of Naval Research, Department of Homeland Security, Home Office, Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, National Institute of Justice, the European Union and the North-West Counter Terrorism Unit. These projects exceed €10M in total.  These projects were all directly relevant to violent extremist risk assessment and management. Topics include lone-actor terrorism, mass casualty offenders, online radicalisation, risk factors, evaluation and risk assessment and management. They also span a wide range of threat groups including Irish Republican groups, extreme right-wing individuals, left-wing movements, lone actors, and jihadist-inspired groups and individuals.  He has extensive experience of teaching, developing, and publishing research that uses a range of methodological tools and theoretical paradigms.  He has worked extensively with and as a consultant for UK police forces and their crime reduction partners.

Dr Michèle Grossman is Professor and Research Chair in Diversity and Community Resilience at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University in Australia, where she also serves as Director of the Centre for Resilient and Inclusive Societies (CRIS) (www.crisconsortium.org) and Convenor of the AVERT (Addressing Violent Extremism and Radicalisation to Terrorism) Research Network (www.avert.net.au). She is an Associate Editor of Terrorism and Political Violence, an Editorial Board member of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism and a Robert Schuman (Distinguished Scholar) Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. Her research on various aspects of preventing and countering violent extremism has been funded by Public Safety Canada, National Institute of Justice, CREST-ESRC, Department of Home Affairs, CVESC-ANZCTC and Horizon 2020, among others. With Canadian colleagues, she developed the BRAVE measure for youth resilience to violent extremism (2017) and has pioneered multi-country research on intimate bystander reporting on violent extremist involvement (2015-2022)

Rohan Gunaratna is Professor of Security Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technology University, Singapore. He received his Masters from the University of Notre Dame in the US where he was Hesburgh Scholar and his doctorate from the University of St Andrews in the UK where he was British Chevening Scholar. A former Senior Fellow at the Combating Terrorism Centre at the United States Military Academy at West Point and at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Gunaratna was invited to testify on the structure of al-Qaeda before the 9/11 Commission. The author of 16 books including ‘Inside al-Qaeda: Global Network of Terror’ (2002). Gunaratna edited the Insurgency and Terrorism Series of the Imperial College Press, London. He is a trainer for national security agencies, law enforcement authorities and military counter-terrorism units, interviewed terrorists and insurgents in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Saudi Arabia and other conflict zones. For advancing international security cooperation, Gunaratna received the Major General Ralph H. Van Deman Award in June 2014.

Executive Director of Equitas since 2004, Ian Hamilton first joined the organization as Director of Programs, a position he held for five years. Prior to Equitas, M. Hamilton worked in Bangkok for the Coordinating Committee of Human Rights Organizations of Thailand for sixteen months, assisting its campaign for the establishment of a National Human Rights Commission. From 1992 to 1995, he worked in a variety of positions, including Asia Program Officer for Rights and Democracy, also known as the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development. He graduated from the University of Toronto in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in history. In 2016, Mr. Hamilton was appointed to a two-year term on the Board of Directors of the Canadian Council for International Cooperation (CCCI). Mr. Hamilton is an associate member of the UNESCO-PREV Chair.

Shandon Harris‐Hogan is the Director of RADAR Solutions, a company specializing in research, training and evaluation related to Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). Before founding Radar Solutions, Shandon worked as a researcher at the Global Terrorism Research Centre (Monash University) and as an analyst for the Australian government. A graduate of Masters programs run by Monash and Macquarie Universities; Shandon is currently an Adjunct Fellow at Victoria University. Shandon’s research focuses on understanding radicalisation and analyzing the structure of terrorist networks. Such work has been published in a number of leading academic journals, and in 2014 he was named the Future Strategic Writer of the year by the Institute for Regional Security. Shandon’s applied research focuses on helping to facilitate disengagement from violent extremism through the design, implementation and evaluation of CVE programs and policy.

A former war reporter who has covered the largest recent theaters of war or insurrection, sometimes of a terrorist nature, Nicolas Hénin is a consultant and trainer in counter-terrorism and prevention of radicalisation. He also contributes to projects monitoring disinformation, hate speech and conspiracy. Holder of masters degrees in contemporary history and journalism, he is an auditor of the 69th session of the l’Institut des hautes études de défense nationale (IHEDN). He is notably the author of Jihad Academy : nos erreurs face à l’État islamique (2015) and Comprendre le terrorisme : bâtissons une société résiliente (2017). He is a member of the Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN), the FrancoPrev network and was a lecturer at Daegu University (Korea).