03.07.2024 Mario López Areu and Manuela Stranges have been elected as speakers of the Research Hub Security and Conflict Transformation – Congratulations!

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In May, 2024, the Research Hub Security and Conflict Transformation elected its speakers: Mario López Areu from the University of Comillas and Manuela Stranges from the University of Calabria as a substitute. 

Mario López Areu is Professor of Political Science and International Relations at Comillas Pontifical University in Madrid. He holds a PhD summa cum laude in Political Science and degrees from the London School of Economics and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). He has been a visiting scholar at Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi) and the Nepâ School of Social Sciences and Humanities (Kathmandu). His areas of research are political thought and the history of ideas, with a focus on postcolonial contributions, and, in particular, South Asia and non-violent conflict resolution.

Manuela Stranges is currently an Associate Professor of Demography at the Department of Economics, Statistics, and Finance “Giovanni Anania” at the University of Calabria. She serves as the Deputy Director of the Center of Women’s Studies “Milly Villa” at Unical. Among her other scientific appointments, she is the Secretary of the Italian Association for Population Studies (AISP) within the Italian Association of Statistics (SIS).

Professor Stranges is the leader, unit PI, or coordinator of several important projects funded by Italian or European funds and is a member of several others. Her research covers a variety of topics including population ageing, social norms, subjective wellbeing, intergenerational transmission, and sexuality. However, her primary research interest has always been migration. She has conducted extensive research on various demographic, social, and economic aspects of migration, such as subjective well-being, remittances, labor outcomes, abortion, and discrimination in the labor market, with a particular focus on gender differences. In recent years, her research has particularly focused on refugees, studying their inflows, characteristics, family patterns, and trajectories.

The Research Hub Security and Conflict Transformation combines the strengths of the partners in the Alliance in order to strengthen research in the interdisciplinary field of peace, conflict and security studies. Thank you, Mario López Areu and Manuela Stranges, for your engagement in fostering this important research area!