Humanitarian Futures Fellows

Amira Adam is a global health researcher and practitioner with more than 16 years of experience in HIV, infectious diseases, women’s health, displacement, and humanitarian health systems. Amira is currently a PhD candidate at the University of California, San Francisco , where she is exploring  the impact of conflict on the continuity of HIV services through a multi-country research project. She recently served as Acting Deputy Lead for Communicable Diseases with the World Health Organization Sudan country office. As a Humanitarian Futures Fellow with WRC, Amira’s research will focus on how displacement has impacted Sudanese women and girls’ experiences accessing HIV and sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) services.

Asmaa AbuMezied is a Palestinian feminist researcher and practitioner, originally from Gaza, whose work and intellectual trajectory are deeply shaped by lived experience of occupation, protracted conflict, and statelessness. Over the past decade, Asmaa has worked across humanitarian, development, and policy spaces at the intersection of gender justice, economic justice, and crisis response. Asmaa holds an MPA in development practice from Columbia University, where she focused on social and economic policy, gender, and inequality, and an MSc in management and human resources from the London School of Economics. Asmaa’s research as a Humanitarian Futures Fellow will explore a Palestinian feminist vision for the reconstruction of Gaza, looking at how reconstruction can center care, economic justice, and displaced women’s leadership.

Jaël Zawadi Gasindikira is a researcher from Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). She holds an M.A. from the Adventist University of Goma and is currently a PhD candidate in educational sciences at the University of Burundi. She works as a lecturer-researcher at the School of Gender Studies of the University of Goma and in several other universities in the region. She also serves as research lead for the Beyond Compliance Consortium research program in the DRC. Her work focuses on the dynamics of violence and armed conflict in the eastern part of the country, with particular attention to their differentiated impacts on women and children. As part of the Humanitarian Futures Fellowship, her research will examine the role of women’s leadership and agency in redefining sustainable solutions in contexts of cycles of displacement and return in DRC’s North Kivu province.

Kawkab Al-Thaibani is a feminist researcher specializing in the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda, gender-responsive policy, and human rights. Her work is backed by experience in communications, advocacy, and research with international and national organizations across the Middle East. Kawkab’s expertise is uniquely informed by her leadership in establishing the Women4Yemen Network and Power4CivilSociety, which successfully bridged the gap between grassroots Yemeni mediation and international diplomacy. As a Vital Voices Global Leadership Fellow, Kawkab leveraged deep field-level insights to advise on inclusive peace narratives and policies. Kawkab is currently a conflict studies and human rights MSc candidate at Utrecht University. As a Humanitarian Futures Fellow, Kawkab’s research will explore how women peace activists in exile can meaningfully inform humanitarian responses in Yemen.

Latifa Jafari Alavi is a lecturer in law at the university of Strasbourg. She holds a PhD in international law from the University of Strasbourg, where her dissertation explored impunity for international crimes in Afghanistan. Her research interests include accountability for international crimes, intersectionality and access to human rights, and environmental injustice. Latifa conducted research on access to maternal health services in Afghanistan as a research fellow with the Raoul Wallenberg Institute for Human Rights and Humanitarian Law, where she also contributed to the UN Special Rapporteur’s report on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan. She has also worked with the International Criminal Court and the International Development Law Organization. As a Humanitarian Futures Fellow, Latifa’s research will explore intersectional discrimination and reproductive health for displaced returnee women in Afghanistan.

Ruby Haji Naif is a Syrian feminist researcher and PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge who holds an M.A. in social and cultural anthropology and a BA in media and communications from the American University of Beirut. Her research focuses on the intersection of gender, displacement, belonging, and community-based care, with a particular emphasis on Syrian women in Germany and questions of belonging, return, and women-led initiatives. As a Humanitarian Futures Fellow, Ruby’s research will explore women-led community spaces and feminist systems of care for displaced Syrian women.