MASTER OF CEREMONIES
Nienke de Deugd
Nienke de Deugd received her education at the University of Groningen, where she studied both History and International Relations & International Organization. Upon completion of her PhD research (about the development of a system of democratic and civilian oversight over the armed forces in Ukraine and the country’s relationship with NATO) Nienke joined the IRIO department. She currently teaches in both the Ba programme (History of International Relations 1 and History of International Relations 2, Core Module, and Bachelor’s Thesis) and in the Ma Programme (Master’s Thesis), in Euroculture, and in the Honours College. Nienke’s research focuses on processes of transformation and integration in post-Cold War Europe, with a special focus on the former Soviet republics, on the European Neighbourhood Policy/Eastern Partnership, and on relations with the Russian Federation. |
SPEAKERS
Meghan Grace
Meghan Grace is a generational researcher, host of the podcast #GenZ, and co-author of the books, Generation Z Goes to College and Generation Z: A Century in the Making. She and her co-author, Dr. Corey Seemiller have been studying Generation Z since 2013, have conducted three original studies on Generation Z. Meghan is passionate about helping others create empowering experiences for members of Generation Z by utilizing generational research, both qualitative and quantitative, to understand today’s young people. She has experience in higher education as a researcher, administrator, instructor, and is actually still a student herself. Throughout her professional career, she has worked to educate others about Generation Z students and create ways for Generation Z to lead, learn, and grow. Meghan holds her undergraduate degree in communication studies from Chapman University and a master’s in higher education from the University of Arizona. She is completing her doctoral degree at Vanderbilt University studying higher education leadership and policy. |
Farah Karimi
Farah Karimi is a Dutch politician / administrator of Iranian descent. Since June 2019, she has been a member of the Dutch Senate and vice-chairman of the party for GroenLinks. Between 2008 and 2018, Farah Karimi chaired the work of humanitarian and development organization as chairman of the board of Oxfam Novib. She was also a member of the board of directors of Oxfam International and of the Samenwerkende Hulporganisaties (SHO). Under her leadership Oxfam Novib underwent major changes and cooperation within Oxfam International was intensified. In 2007 Farah Karimi spent several months in Afghanistan and advised the Afghan Parliament on behalf of the UNDP (United Nations Development Program). Before that, she was a member of the GroenLinks faction in the House of Representatives between 1998 and 2006. Farah Karimi has lived in the Netherlands since 1989. She studied Policy and Governance in International Organizations at the University of Groningen. As political activist against the regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran, she fled Iran in 1983 and was admitted as a refugee in Germany. Her commitment to human rights worldwide remains the common thread in her work and life. In addition to many articles on current social and political topics, she has also published two books: The Secret of the Fire (co-written with Chris Keulemans, 2005) and Battlefield Afghanistan (2006). |
Mike Ackermans
Mike Ackermans has been chief editor of CBS and a member of the board of directors since 2015. He is responsible for the Communication and News division, which distributes all statistics and stories about this to target groups in Dutch society. CBS works closely with the Dutch news media, for which CBS is one of the most important sources. Every day, the stories of CBS about how the Netherlands stands are reflected in the important media. Before that, Ackermans worked for more than twenty-five years as a journalist. His work included Het Financieele Dagblad, RTL Nieuws, de Volkskrant and BNR Nieuwsradio. For many years, he led editorial boards as chief editor, for example of the business magazines FEM Business and Nieuwsblad Transport and the regional newspapers of the Telegraaf Media Groep.. |
Dr. Nadine Voelkner
Dr Nadine Voelkner is a researcher and Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Faculty of Arts of the Rijksuniversiteit, Groningen. As a researcher she focusses on the political ecologies of global health examining the socio-political context of infectious diseases. Dr Voelkner heads the Health Ecologies research unit and is an Aletta Research Fellow of the Groningen Centre for Health and Humanities and the Aletta Jacobs School of Public Health. Dr Voelkner explores the politics of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic highlighting the war-analogy and the interrelation between the disease outbreak and other socio-political circumstances in her video lecture for this year's Conference. |
Prof. Dr. Toebes
Prof Dr Toebes is a Human Rights Lawyer and holds the Chair for “Health Law in a Global Context” at the Rijksuniversiteit, Groningen. Her research and expertise encompass the field of Health Law in a Global Context exploring especially the Human Rights dimension of international health standards and health prevention. Among other positions she co-chairs the Global Health Law Committee of the International Law Association. For this year's Conference Prof Toebes will elaborate on the role of international health standards, their relationship to national policies and the role of human rights in the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. |
Louk Faesen
Louk Faesen is Strategic Analyst at the Cyber Policy and Resilience Program of The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies. He mainly focuses on international peace and security in cyberspace, norms of responsible state and non-state behavior, and confidence-building measures (CBMs) in cyberspace. Louk functions as the Project Manager of the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace (GCSC), a multi-stakeholder initiative launched at the 2017 Munich Security Conference by the Foreign minister of the Netherlands that brings together leading experts from all major cyber powers and regions to help develop norm and policy initiatives related to international peace and security in cyberspace. Louk Faesen previously worked as a Policy Officer at the Task Force International Cyber Policy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands. He holds a Master’s degree in Law and Politics of International Security (LLM) from the VU University of Amsterdam. |
Susan Vermeer
Susan Vermeer is a PhD Candidate at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) in the program group Political Communication & Journalism. Currently, she is writing her dissertation about news consumption in a digital media environment. Citizens, especially younger adults, are increasingly and predominantly using online and social media (e.g., Instagram, WhatsApp) to get informed about the world around them. By using an innovative approach (e.g., big data, experimental data), she investigates how content features, consumer features and context features interact in shaping news exposure and, ultimately, political interest and political participation. Susan obtained her Master of Science in Communication Science at the University of Amsterdam, and her Bachelor of Science in Communication and Information Science at the University of Tilburg (The Netherlands). |
Carlo Schippers
Carlo Schippers started his career in law enforcement in Amsterdam, 43 years ago. In 1990, as a homicide detective at the time, he was invited to a one year training at the FBI Academy in the United States, learning about behavioral support of criminal investigations into mostly murder, sexual assault and other crimes in which the interpretation of behavior could assist detectives in trying to solve their case. After his training Carlo started his now more than 28 years of activities supporting teams of detectives from all Dutch police regions with their ongoing and Cold Case investigations. He is also a member of the National Expert Group on Specific Sexual Assault Cases. Other than investigating murder and sexual assault Carlo has missing persons as a specialization. He is one of the authors of the Missing Persons Handbooks from 2016 and co-founder of the AMBER Alert system in The Netherlands. |
Kate Saslow
Kate Saslow works as a project manager for three themes: Artificial Intelligence and Foreign Policy; EU Cyber Resilience; and Machine Learning and Cyber Security. In Artificial Intelligence and Foreign Policy. Kate looks at AI and specifically machine learning's effects on economic and trade dynamics, advancing an international human rights framework to apply to ML development, and analyzing global AI governance initiatives to understand Europes position in international affairs. As part of the EU Cyber Direct, Kate analyzes European cyber resilience policies to inform a debate on where Europe can foster strategic partnerships to push forward a global cyber resilience regime. With the Transatlantic Cyber Forum project, Kate manages the project on machine learning and information security as a way to understand potential for adversarial threats to ML systems and how this could be understood by policy makers as a danger to national security. Kate holds a Master of International Affairs degree from the Hertie School of Governance, a public policy university in Berlin. Here she specialized in topics of digitalization, economic development, and governance, and concluded her studies with a capstone thesis on artificial intelligence and gender inequality in the United States labor economy. She also holds a Bachelor's degree in International Relations from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. |