Dr. Mac Skelton is Director of the Institute of Regional and International Studies (IRIS) at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani (AUIS), and he concurrently serves as Visiting Fellow at the London School of Economics (LSE) Middle East Centre. Skelton has led research projects on politics, displacement, and development in... Read More

Zainab Hamid Mera is a Senior Program Officer at IRIS, where she oversees the finance and administration division of IRIS. She joined IRIS in September 2017, prior to which she worked with IRIS as a Program Assistant for the 2017 Sulaimani Forum and the post-ISIS security project. She graduated from... Read More

Dr. Zmkan Ali Saleem is Senior Fellow as well as a consultant on research projects at IRIS. Dr. Saleem 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... Read More

Adnan Sadik joined IRIS in October 2019 as Program Manager of the Iraq Leadership Fellows (ILF) , where he plans and oversees the various activities of the program. Prior to that, Adnan managed many different projects in trading companies, media outlets, and think tanks. He is a Software Engineer and... Read More

Shvan joined IRIS in October 2019 as Program Manager, External Relations , where he oversees the annual Sulaimani Forum. Prior to joining IRIS, Shvan worked in the Human Resources department for eight years, where he supported IRIS and served as a co-organizer of Sulaimani Forum for six years. Shvan is... Read More

Hamzeh Al-Shadeedi joined IRIS in January 2020 as a Policy Researcher . In this capacity, he focuses on issues of security and the rule of law in Iraq. Before joining IRIS, Hamzeh worked for the Conflict Research Unit of the Clingendael Institute, where he researched issues of local governance in... Read More

Lana Sardar is a Research Assistant at IRIS through a research apprenticeship program funded by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC). In that role, she contributes to an AHRC-funded 2-year research project in partnership with the Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) entitled "Protecting Civilians From Harm: How humanitarians... Read More

Mohammed Bakr is a Research Assistant at IRIS, where he primarily focuses on security issues. Prior to rejoining IRIS, Mohammed worked as the English Editor for the Kirkuk Now media outlet. He also worked with IRIS as a student research assistant for a year and half, when he was pursuing... Read More

Dr. Renad Mansour serves as Senior 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... Read More

Dr. Marsin Alshamary is a Non-Resident Fellow at IRIS and will be joining the foreign policy team at Brookings Institution as a post-doctoral fellow in the fall. Prior to this, she was a pre-doctoral fellow with the Middle East Initiative at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in... Read More