Christine van den Toorn is Director of IRIS. She also serves as the Executive Director of External Relations and Policy for AUIS. She has fifteen years of academic and professional experience in the Middle East, nine of which have been spent in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). She has conducted fieldwork all over the KRI, with a particular focus on disputed territories in Ninewa, Diyala and Salahddin, and has published articles...
Dr. James "Mac" Skelton is Director of Research & Policy at IRIS. Skelton is an anthropologist and Middle East analyst with field research and programmatic experience in Yemen, Lebanon, and Iraq. While at IRIS he has overseen research projects on conflict and stabilization funded by the UK Department of International Development (DFID) and the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), among others. Skelton is a member of the Costs...
Dr. Zmkan Ali Saleem is Senior Researcher at IRIS. In that role, he has served as lead researcher for projects funded by Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the Norwegian Research Council. He holds a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Leeds/UK and teaches in the College of Political Science at the University of Sulaimani. His doctoral research examined the domestic determinants of Iran’s regional security policies. Saleem’s later research...
Ahmed Tabaqchali is Senior Fellow at IRIS. Mr. Tabaqchali is the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of AFC Iraq Fund and a board member of the Credit Bank of Iraq with over 25 years of experience in US and MENA markets. He formerly served as the Executive Director of NBK Capital, the investment banking arm of the National Bank...
Rahman Aljebouri is Senior Fellow at IRIS and the president of the Political Leadership and Governance Development Academy. He previously served as Associate Director for the Middle East and North Africa at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Currently based in Baghdad, he connects IRIS with policy makers in the federal government by overseeing high-level dialogues among stakeholders in Baghdad, Basra, and southern Iraq. He also leads IRIS’ training programs, which focus...
Dr. Renad Mansour serves as Research Fellow at IRIS, where he has worked as a key researcher and expert on IRIS’ collaboration with the London School of Economics and the Department of International Development’s (DFID) Conflict Research Programme. He is concurrently a Research Fellow in the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House, where his research explores dilemmas posed by state-building in Iraq. Prior to joining Chatham House and IRIS,...
Zainab Hamid Mera is a Senior Program Officer at IRIS. She joined IRIS in September 2017,...
Emily Burlinghaus is Program Officer at IRIS. She joined IRIS in September 2017, prior to which...
