The Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies is a unique teaching, research and humanitarian exchange platform for humanitarian action. We are a joint Centre of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and the University of Geneva, two internationally renowned centres of academic excellence.
Find out more in our 2021 Annual Report.
Our vision
Current and aspiring humanitarian professionals have access to past and latest evidence-based knowledge to better respond to the needs of populations in crisis.
Our mission
Through research, education, and humanitarian dialogue and exchange, the Centre will strengthen the capacity and practice of humanitarian professionals wherever they work in order to empower them to respond effectively to global humanitarian challenges.
We also aim to contribute to critical reflections on contemporary humanitarianism with the view of bringing positive transformations to the humanitarian system.
Strategy 2021-2025
The aim of our 2021-2025 strategy is to ensure the Centre keeps pace with the changing humanitarian landscape as it provides relevant, timely training for humanitarian professionals, carries out pertinent research on under-researched issues within the sector and offers a neutral space for debate on sensitive subjects.
Within the strategy, the Centre undertakes to fulfill three institutional commitments to:
- breakdown barriers to access learning opportunities for humanitarian professionals in middle and lower income countries
- ensure our training and research is multi-faceted, and covers a wide range of perspectives and schools of thought that explore humanitarianism
- adapt the Centre to humanitarian reality by continuously analyzing new trends and under -researched issues
The Strategy includes four strategic pillars: Education, Research, Humanitarian Exchange, and Management, Collaboration & Partnerships.
The strategy reflects on the changing humanitarian landscape and the challenges this produces, including those most recently caused by the COVID19 pandemic which has exacerbated national protectionism, increased the marginalization of vulnerable communities and has seen the principle of working ‘for the common-good eroded, in the race to find national solutions.
In response to the many challenges that make the transformation of the sector difficult, the Centre will;
- make training as accessible as possible by increasing online and blended courses
- provide more scholarships for participants from lower and middle income countries
- support refugees and migrants who have seen their education interrupted
- explore under-researched issues and trends and share all findings free and widely
- be a neutral entity where debate can take place in confidence
The Centre will evolve in close collaboration with its institutional and humanitarian partners including the University of Geneva, the Graduate Institute, ICRC and MSF.
Education and Research
We offer a wide range of academic courses and conduct various research projects looking at under developed areas of interest in humanitarian action.
Our courses provide in-depth training on humanitarian topics such as negotiation, protection, planetary health, and addressing sexual violence, as well as project management in humanitarian settings. They are based on an innovative pedagogical model designed for adult education, in order to strengthen the practitioners’ competencies and apply the theoretical knowledge, developed during the courses, directly to their professional environment.
Our interdisciplinary research projects foster critical analysis of the humanitarian sector to encourage reflection on professional practices as well as the politics of humanitarianism and humanitarian organizations.
We also promote critical reflection of the humanitarian system through research projects developed by our researchers on current issues either in the field or in collaboration with major humanitarian organisations and academic centres. Current research includes analysis of the impact of attacks on healthcare, migration to and within Europe and the health implications, and health systems thinking in humanitarian settings.
In additional our research project, the Humanitarian Encyclopedia, offers a platform for practitioners, community leaders, policymakers and academics to reflect on humanitarian concepts and practice in the 21st century.
In the 1970s and 1980s, some of the larger humanitarian organisations based in Geneva started offering operational training for humanitarians. A decade later, in the aftermath of the Rwanda genocide, the Balkans war and the ensuing mass mobilisation of new humanitarian actors, the need to ‘professionalise’ the sector became evident.
1998 – Back then, there were no academic courses on humanitarian action, but thanks to the University of Geneva, several international organisations and the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a Plurifaculty Programme for Humanitarian Action – PPAH, was born. The Plurifaculty Programme for Humanitarian Action was the first iteration of the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies. The objective of this visionary programme was to offer high-level, continuous education for humanitarian practitioners.
2004 – The programme was radically transformed under the impulse of the University of Geneva and the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) and re-named PIAH – Interdisciplinary Programme in Humanitarian Action. PIAH offered a wider course programme, including a Master of Advanced Studies in Humanitarian Action, in partnership with the International Committee of the Red Cross and Médecins Sans Frontières Switzerland.
2008 – The partnership between the University of Geneva and the IHEID changed the programme’s name into CERAH – Centre for Education and Research in Humanitarian Action. In 2012, the Centre expanded its course offer by adding to the Master DAS, CAS and Executive Short Courses. In 2017, the Centre launched its Humanitarian Encyclopedia research project, and in 2018 it celebrated its 20th anniversary.
2020 – We have evolved further and became the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies. The name reflects a new vision for the Centre: we used 2020 – a challenging year for everyone – as a foundation to learn and build on our experience of distance learning and research collaborations, to assess what further transformations are needed and feasible to increase access and availability of our courses and research to frontline humanitarian workers and organisations.
Our visual identity puts our key audience, humanitarian professionals, centre stage. We use portraits of real doctors, project managers, nurses, communications professionals immersed in different humanitarian contexts to show the richness and the diversity of what our tagline “improving humanitarian response” really means. We, together with our students and partners, are part of this global commitment.
MANAGEMENT
Joëlle Gentile
Joëlle joined the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies (at the time known as PIAH) in October 2007. With a degree in Business Administration (HES) she has worked for a number of companies in the Geneva region.
She acquired various skills prior to joining the Centre, among others in implementing customer satisfaction surveys and designing a salary management programme.
Functions
- Human resources
- Finances
- Management of scholarships
ACADEMICS
Dr Joanna Bourke Bartignoni
Joanna Bourke Martignoni is a Senior Researcher at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and an Affiliate of the Gender Centre at the Graduate Institute. Her research areas include the right to food, land commercialization, climate change, the right to education, and gender equality. She is a postdoctoral researcher and coordinator on the DEMETER (Droits et Egalité pour une Meilleure Economie de la Terre) multidisciplinary research for development project (2015–2021) that is examining land commercialization, gendered agrarian transformation and the right to food, with Cambodia and Ghana as case studies.
In addition to her research work, Dr Bourke Martignoni teaches courses on economic, social and cultural rights, international organisations, development, international humanitarian law, transitional justice and feminist theory at the University of Fribourg, the Geneva Academy and at the Australian National University.
She has also worked as a consultant to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women. In addition, she has held positions as a programme officer on women’s rights at the World Organisation Against Torture and as a legal adviser at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Dr Bourke Martignoni has degrees in South East Asian History, Political Science and Law from the University of New South Wales and the Australian National University, a Master’s in International Law from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies and a PhD in law from the University of Fribourg. Her doctoral thesis examined the human right to education in the context of international development cooperation programmes with special reference to the role of the World Bank.
Dr Erna Burai
Erna joined the Centre in August 2022. She holds a PhD from Central European University (CEU) in Political Science and International Relations, which she earned with a dissertation titled Responsibilities to Protect: accountability and responsiveness in protecting populations from atrocity crimes. As a theorist, she focuses on norms and norm contestation, responsibility in global governance and academic practices, pedagogy and academic writing.
Erna has more than a decade of experience in higher education and research. Before joining the Centre, she worked at the Geneva Graduate Institute on regional security architectures (2018-2022) and at Central European University on global norm evolution and the Responsibility to Protect (2012-2015). She held visiting research fellowships at the European University Institute and The Montreal Centre for International Studies. She led the International Relations program of a Hungarian higher education institution between 2011 and 2015.
She is committed to education and career development and currently serves as a member of the Early Career Development Group of the European International Studies Association (EISA). In addition to her native Hungarian, Erna is fluent in English and French and speaks Spanish.
Fields of interest
- Governance
- International Relations
- Norm contestation in international politics
- Responsibility and accountability in global governance
- Humanitarian action
- International organisations
- Academic practices
- Academic writing, critical pedagogy
Related courses
Hélène Juillard
Helene has been working as an evaluator in the humanitarian sector for the past decade with a specific focus on cash and market based programming. She heads Key Aid Consulting‘s work on cash and market-based programming, as well as capacity development. She has supported the institutionalisation of cash and market-based programming for UNDP, UNHCR, IRC, Save the Children, CARE, Oxfam and World Vision, among others. She has also authored several related guidance documents, including the CaLP Programme Quality Toolbox and the PCMA guidance, and was involved in the Sphere Standards revision as a cash specialist. Helene is a member of the CaLP Technical Advisory Group and the Market in Crisis Advisory Group. Hélène also regularly designs and trains humanitarian practitioners on cash and market-based programming. She is a lecturer with Manchester University and Sciences Po Paris.
Related courses
Baptiste Martin
Baptiste Martin has 20 years of experience in conflict and post-conflict contexts, including in Israel/Palestine, Iraq, Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Central African Republic (CAR) and the G5 Sahel region. He has mainly worked on protection of civilians and stabilisation issues, with both humanitarian actors – including Première Urgence Internationale, MSF, UNHCR and OHCHR -, international peace operations and regional defense forces.
Baptiste has spent most of the last decade with the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO), both in the field and at UN headquarters in New York. In field missions, he has worked as a humanitarian officer, head of field office and stabilization team leader under UNMIS in South Sudan, as well as a protection of civilians adviser to MONUSCO in the DRC, MINUSCA in the CAR and MINUSMA in Mali. At UNHQ, he headed the Protection of Civilians Coordination Team of DPKO, where he led the development of the Policy on the Protection of Civilians in UN Peacekeeping.
In 2017-2018, as a PoC Expert for the Swedish Folke Bernadotte Academy, he drafted the DPKO Protection of Civilians Handbook, acted as a mentor for the 2018 Swedish Viking exercise, drafted the Protection of civilians strategy of the Multinational Joint Taskforce (MNJTF) on Boko Haram and contributed to the development of the NATO Protection of civilians Concept.
In 2018-2020, he joined the OHCHR as a Senior Human Rights Officer and head of the G5 Sahel Joint Force IHL/IHRL compliance framework project, based in Mali.
In addition to joining the Center early 2021, Baptiste is currently supporting human rights compliance of national park rangers in the DRC.
He graduated from the Sorbonne University and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (SciencesPo).
Related courses
Alex Odlum
Alex joined the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies in March 2020 as Research Coordinator for the Humanitarian Encyclopedia project. His work experience spans research and analysis, needs assessment, information and knowledge management, and monitoring and evaluation, with humanitarian organisations including ACAPS, the International Organization for Migration, Lessons Learned Simulations and Training, and the Mixed Migration Centre. His research interests include organisational behaviour and decision making in humanitarian crises, coordination in humanitarian information systems, and migration policy and governance. Alex holds a Master of Public Policy from the Hertie School of Governance in Berlin, and Bachelors of Law and International Studies from the University of Adelaide.
Dr Aimad Ourahmoune
Dr.med. Aimad Ourahmoun is Deputy head physician of Care Quality Department, Medical and Quality Directorate, Geneva University Hospitals, and Head of quality and safety courses, Faculty of Medicine (Geneva University) and The Swiss Patient Safety Foundation.
Related courses
Laura Pasquero
Laura Pasquero joined the Centre in early 2021 after a collaboration started in 2020. She is the coordinator of the Executive Short Course “Sexual Violence in Conflict Settings and Emergencies“.
Laura has worked on sexual and gender-based violence prevention and response, protection, human trafficking and forced displacement within the human rights, humanitarian and international relief fields since 2005 in Kosovo, Colombia, Moldova, Morocco, Papua New Guinea, DRC, Iraq, Greece and Italy among other countries. She regularly supports Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and other international and national organisations in several contexts.
Laura graduated in International Relations from the University of Turin (Italy) and obtained a Master’s in Human Rights and Democratisation from the Global Campus of Human Rights in 2007. Laura qualified as an Independent Sexual Violence Advocate (ISVA) from the University of Worcester (UK) in 2016.
Related courses
Jonathan Polonsky
Jonathan is an epidemiologist with broad interests in infectious diseases and the Public Health Information Services (PHIS), a collection of informational needs that actors responding to humanitarian crises rely upon to ensure evidence- and needs-based programmes: Rapid Health Assessments, Early Warning, Alert, and Response Systems (EWARS), mortality estimation, malnutrition surveillance, vaccine campaign implementation and evaluation, and accessibility to essential health services. He holds an undergraduate degree in Human Sciences from Oxford University, a Masters degree in Epidemiology from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and is studying for a PhD in Global Health from the University of Geneva.
Throughout his career, Jonathan has mixed research with emergency response actvities, primarily in humanitarian settings. Before joining the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies, he worked for Epicentre, a unit of Médecins Sans Frontières that specialises in epidemiology and research, and as a specialist in humanitarian epidemiology and outbreak response for the World Health Organization. In addition to being principal investigator on numerous operational and clinical research studies, he has served as epidemiology team lead during several high-impact outbreaks (including as WHO’s COVID-19 Data Analytics Team Lead), and as Health Cluster Information Manager in multiple crisis settings. He has worked in crisis-affected settings in over a dozen countries across Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Americas.
He regularly teaches Masters and Diploma students in humanitarian epidemiology, outbreak response, and the use of the R statistical language for public health. He also teaches workshops on scientific communication and is the co-editor-in-chief of the humanitarian health journal ‘Conflict & Health’ (Impact Factor 4.6).
At the Centre, Jonathan is course director for the Health Emergencies in Large Populations (H.E.L.P.) course, jointly organised by ICRC and WHO. He is also a member of the PULSE survey team, the aim of which is to design and test community engagement interventions and evaluate their effect on vaccination uptake and management of vaccination programmes in humanitarian settings.
Mohammed Shafiq Mirzazada
Dr Shafiq Mirzazada, M.D., M.P.H, is a Researcher holding a Scholarship of Excellence (Boursiers d’excellence) awarded by the Swiss Government to pursue his academic and research work at the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies. He joined the centre in November 2022. Before joining the centre he worked as Deputy Minister Policy and Planning at the Ministry of Public Health of Afghanistan. He was the Director, Academic Projects Afghanistan for Aga Khan University. He also worked with the Aga Khan Health Service, Afghanistan as Chief Executive Officer, Country Program Director, Manager- Community Health Programs and National Program Officer. His expertise ranges from research to program development and implementation, capacity building, development of Human Resource for health, RMNCAH, Non-Communicable Diseases, Community Health, Population Health, and Health Promotion and Disease Prevention. He is Medical Doctor graduated from Balkh University, Faculty of Medicine in 1999. He is also a holder of Master of Public Health (MPH) degree from Saint Louis University, School of Public Health Missouri. USA (2008). He was offered the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to pursue his M.P.H in the United States.
Dr. Mirzazada is founding member of Afghanistan National Public Health Association and served as vice-president of the association during 2012-2013 and executive board member of the association. He also serves as member of Afghanistan Fulbright Association.
PUBLICATIONS
Gaffey MF, Ataullahjan A, Das JK, Mirzazada S, Tounkara M, Dalmar AA, Bhutta ZA. Researching the delivery of health and nutrition interventions for women and children in the context of armed conflict: lessons on research challenges and strategies from BRANCH Consortium case studies of Somalia, Mali, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Confl Health. 2020 Oct 20;14:69. http://doi:10.1186/s13031-020-00315-8 PMID: 33088339; PMCID: PMC7574460.
Mirzazada, S., Padhani, Z.A., Jabeen, S. et al. Impact of conflict on maternal and child health service delivery: a country case study of Afghanistan. Confl Health 14, 38 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s13031-020-00285-x
Abbas, D.F., Mirzazada, S., Durocher, J. et al. Testing a home-based model of care using misoprostol for prevention and treatment of postpartum hemorrhage: results from a randomized placebo-controlled trial conducted in Badakhshan province, Afghanistan. Reprod Health 17, 88 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12978-020-00933-8
Das JK, Akseer N, Mirzazada S, Peera Z, Noorzada O, Armstrong CE, Mukhtar K, Naeem AJ, Bhutta ZA. Scaling up primary health services for improving reproductive, maternal, and child health: a multisectoral collaboration in the conflict setting of Afghanistan. BMJ. 2018 Dec 7;363:k4986. doi: 10.1136/bmj.k4986. PubMed PMID: 30530529; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC6282736. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30530529/
Bhutta ZA, Bang A, Afsana K, Gyawali B, Mirzazada S, Jayatissa R. Rethinking community based strategies to tackle health inequities in South Asia. BMJ. 2018 Nov 29;363:k4884. doi: 10.1136/bmj.k4884. PubMed PMID: 30498009. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30498009/
David S, Gazi R, Mirzazada S, Siriwardhana C, Soofi S, Roy N. Conflict in South Asia and its impact on health. BMJ. 2017 Apr 11;357:j1537. doi: 10.1136/bmj.j1537. PubMed PMID: 28400380. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28400380/
RMNCAH and Nutrition in conflict settings: evidence synthesis and case study analysis to inform policy: Afghanistan and Pakistan
Benjamin Schmid
Ben is Course Director for our Executive Short Course in Non-Communicable Diseases in Humanitarian Settings.
Before this Ben was responsible for developing our MOOC in Operational Research for Humanitarians.
Prior to joining the Centre in January 2021, Ben worked in start-ups, multinationals and research institutions. His research interests include health systems, chronic diseases in humanitarian settings, evaluations of complex interventions and health-related behavioural change. He holds an MSc in Global Health from the University of Copenhagen with a specialisation in disaster risk management and a BA in healthcare management from the Management Centre Innsbruck.
Related courses
Dr Emilie Venables
Emilie is the Course Coordinator for the Addressing Sexual Violence in Conflict and Emergency Settings course. She also works as a Senior Humanitarian Advisor with the All Survivors Project, supporting research in Colombia, Afghanistan and the Central African Republic.
A trained social anthropologist, she has worked in contexts including South Africa, Kenya, Liberia, Senegal, DRC, Lebanon, Mozambique, Cambodia, Greece and Italy. Her research expertise includes migration; anthropology and humanitarian aid; Ebola; HIV/AIDS, and sexual violence. She has almost 20 years of experience designing, conducting and managing research in humanitarian contexts and teaching research methodologies.
Emilie worked for MSF between 2012 and 2019 in various roles, including as a field anthropologist, operational research manager and qualitative research advisor. She then worked as a Senior Operational Researcher with the ICRC for three years, including conducting research in South Sudan, Côte d’Ivoire and CAR on male perceptions of sexual violence and the role of Red Cross volunteers in research and data collection.
Emilie holds a BA in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, an MSc in Development Studies from SOAS and an MSc and PhD in African Studies from the University of Edinburgh. She is an Honorary Research Associate with the University of Cape Town, South Africa and holds an Honorary Fellowship at the University of Edinburgh, UK. She is also training as an integral coach through the Centre for Coaching in Switzerland.
Related courses
TEACHING SUPPORT
Ludovic Clément
Ludovic joined the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies in April 2021 as the new Distance Learning Specialist. His expertise lies in creating effective and entertaining e-Learning courses, digitising trainings and managing LMS. Ludovic started his career as a substitue teacher in Geneva’s primary schools before getting curious about the integration of new technologies within educational environments. This interest led him to get his Master degree in Advanced Learning and Teaching Technologies from the University of Geneva. Before joining the Centre, he worked with SMEs, big corporations and – most importantly to his values – international organisations.
Lucas Dias Rodrigues Dos Santos
Lucas is a doctoral student fascinated by the ongoing reform of multi-lateralism, in an age of increasing multi-polarity. This is an outgrowth of his master’s thesis, about Brazil’s norm-shaping efforts concerning SDG16, to understand the methods and tools employed by non-traditional norm entrepreneurs. His PhD dissertation broaches the political struggles impelling changes in multilateral diplomatic practices in the previous decade, with a focus on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) talks, the Paris Agreement and reform of the UN Secretary-General’s selection process.
Lucas is fulfilling a Teacher Assistant position with the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies.
Swetha Ramachandran
Swetha Ramachandran is a doctoral researcher at The Graduate Institute, Geneva (IHEID). Her dissertation analyses how western aid agencies create perverse incentives for local actors in Sierra Leone. She uses a mix of quantitative and qualitative methods. She is currently a Consultant for the ILO, where she trains mid-career policymakers on evidence-based policymaking and research methods. She is an affiliate with the Centre on Conflict, Development and Peacebuilding (CCDP) and is an active member of the Global Shapers network of the World Economic Forum (WEF). She previously served as a Teaching Assistant for the Masters’s programmes at IHEID and a Research Assistant for an SNSF-funded project on digital peacebuilding. Before commencing her PhD in 2020, Swetha worked as a Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) professional for over two years and was based in eastern Sierra Leone, Lesotho, DRC and South Sudan. In her spare time, she enjoys badminton, running and blogging.
Fields of interest
- Aid financing
- Decolonising aid
- Localisation agenda
- Donor-recipient relations
- Project management in aid
ADMINISTRATION
Marianne Boddele
Marianne joined the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies in May 2019. She holds a Master 2 in Analysis of Countries in Crisis and Humanitarian Action and a Master in Trade and Sales. She has expertise in project coordination as well as in administration and marketing. With professional experience both in the private and NGOs/IOs sectors in the Geneva region, she is able to advise and run projects, whether they involve the administrative setting up of projects or the implementation of marketing strategies.
For the previous four years, Marianne was working for an international NGO leader in the non-formal education field, in charge of corporate communications. She worked on the creation and dissemination of printed and digital communications tools, editing and translation of various types of documents, social media moderation, event management, being involved in a multicultural and worldwide spread team.
Function
- General inquiries and prospective students
- Admissions
- Course administration
Thuy Melich
Thuy is in charge of the management of course administration. She has joined the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies in December 2016. With her Master in Business Administration degree, she has brought over six years of experience in administration. Prior to joining team, she worked in the education sector, NGO and the United Nations.
Fatima Morgan
Fatima re-joined the Centre in August 2021, having worked here for a humanitarian Distance Learning course from 2013 to 2016. Fatima owns a federal administrative diploma. She has worked for several companies in the private sector and non-profit organisations in favour of training, integration and reintegration of people with little or no Swiss qualification.
Besides her work at the Centre of Humanitarian Studies, Fatima volunteers at the Geneva Red Cross as a French teacher for people with a refugee permit or in a difficult situation.
Function:
· Course administration
· General inquiries
COMMUNICATION AND FUNDRAISING
Siân Bowen
Siân has managed the communications at the Centre for four years. Prior to this, she worked in the humanitarian sector for 15 years, managing external relations for various organisations including the International Federation of Red Cross & Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Médecins sans frontières (MSF) and the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC). She has a post graduate degree in journalism and a Masters in the Science of Communications Management. Sian specializes in strategic communications, advocacy, publications, brand management, crisis communications, digital communications and research promotion.
Adrien Genoud
Adrien joined the Centre in September 2022 as Fundraising Manager. With over 20 years of experience, including ten years spent working on humanitarian projects in Iraq and Uganda, he worked in different fields of humanitarian aid, including Child Protection and Psychosocial Support Programmes. His various positions allowed him to successfully be in charge of grant management and develop strong fundraising abilities in the sector. Adrien holds a Certificate in Administration for International Aid and a Master of Advanced Studies in Humanitarian Action.
The Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies was created in its present form in 2008 by an agreement between The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) and the University of Geneva (UNIGE).
The Supervisory Committee
It is the general supervisory body. The Rector of UNIGE and the Director of IHEID sit on the Committee. The Committee’s main tasks are:
- Nominate the president of the centre’s Board of Directors on the basis of a recommendation from the board;
- Monitor the application of the strategy proposed by the board, and ensure that it falls within the framework of the general strategy of the University and the IHEID;
- Approve the annual budget and accounts in addition to the annual report.
The Board of Directors
It is the strategic governing body. It is composed of representatives from UNIGE, IHEID and several humanitarian organizations. In addition, two eminent individuals are co-opted to serve on the board. Its tasks are:
- Guide and monitor the centre’s strategy;
- Identify, orient and ensure the implementation and internal oversight of teaching, research and other activities in order to achieve the Centre’s objectives;
- Develop and transmit course regulations to the competent authorities and oversee their application;
- Deal with conflicts involving students through a Mediation Commission established within the Board.
Current Members of the Board of Directors:
Prof Alexandra Calmy
Professor Alexandra Calmy obtained her medical diploma in 1994 and was trained in internal medicine and in Infectious diseases; she completed a PhD in clinical research in 2009 in Sydney, Australia. She was nominated Associate Professor in 2014 and Full Professor in 2021 and is Head of the HIV/AIDS Unit of the University Hospital of Geneva. Professor Calmy’s research interest focuses on public health and humanitarian response to HIV/AIDS, specifically the provision of antiretroviral therapy and management of side effects in resource limited settings. She worked with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Cambodia in 1996 and has subsequently supported MSF’s HIV/AIDS work for more than ten years. She is a member of the WHO working groups on the writing and the implementation of guidelines related to the treatment of HIV in developing countries since 2001, co-lead of CSS13 committee at the “Agence National de Recherche sur le SIDA – maladies émergentes” (ANRS-MIE), member of the scientific board of the Swiss HIV Study Cohort (SHCS), and co-chair of the COVID-19 Federal Commission on clinical care in Switzerland.
Main fields of interest: The research projects conducted by the HIV/AIDS team are diverse. They include Swiss and international interventional clinical trials, epidemiological studies based on data from the Swiss HIV cohort study, as well as cohort studies focusing on metabolic effects associated with antiretroviral therapy. The clinical trials initiated by the research team focus on 1) progression of atherosclerosis in HIV patients under HAART after 48 weeks of lipid-lowering drug intervention and 2) a Swiss multicenter trial designed to assess the need for a statin prescription in patients whose antiretroviral treatment was changed. The team is also interested in the early detection of bone anomalies with the use of a high-resolution scanner for the analysis of the bone microstructure. Other epidemiological projects use the data of the Swiss cohort study to investigate patients with coronary heart disease, comparing their mortality with that of patients not infected with HIV. The centre also participates actively in all the projects initiated by the Swiss cohort study. A cohort of patients with metabolic complications and lipodystrophy (LIPO and Metabolism Group) was established 5 years ago. This work has demonstrated that a model of integrated multidisciplinary care can be beneficial for patients with complex comorbidities. The research group has a strong interest in clinical and epidemiological research projects conducted in countries with limited resources. Partnerships have been established with MSF, WHO, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and hospitals or hospital networks (Esther). These partnerships allow us to study different epidemics and patient management systems; it also offers training opportunities and a large variety of study fields.
Anton Zuber
Prof Marco Sassòli
Marco Sassòli, is professor of international law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Geneva. From 2001-2003, he has been professor of international law at the Université du Québec à Montreal, Canada, where he remains associate professor. He is commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) and pro bono special advisor on IHL of the prosecutor of the international Criminal Court.
Marco Sassòli has worked from 1985-1997 for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) at the headquarters, inter alia as deputy head of its legal division, and in the field, inter alia as head of the ICRC delegations in Jordan and Syria and as protection coordinator for the former Yugoslavia.
He has also served as chair of the board of Geneva Call, an NGO engaging non-State armed actors to respect humanitarian rules and as director of the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.
Marco Sassòli has published widely on international humanitarian law (most recently: International Humanitarian Law: Rules, Controversies, and Solutions to Problems Arising in Warfare, Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2019), human rights law, international criminal law, the sources of international law, and the responsibility of states and non-state actors.
Mohini Ghai Kramer
Born in Kenya and of Indian origin, Mohini Ghai Kramer has over 25 years of professional experience in strategy development, management, project oversight, organisational development and global communications in the humanitarian and private sector.
She is currently working in Geneva as Global Head of Learning and Development at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), an organisation that responds quickly to help people affected by war and disasters in conflict zones. Mohini is responsible for setting the organisation’s global learning strategy and design, as well as the delivery of numerous trainings in multiple locations around the world. She also oversees the ICRC’s leadership development programmes to grow key talent. Most recently she has been working on leading and developing global and culturally diverse teams, designing programmes to enhance organizational performance and implementing large-scale change initiatives.
In her last role as Chief of Staff in the Director-General’s Office, Mohini was responsible for setting the strategic agenda for the executive leadership team, supporting the implementation and performance monitoring of the organization’s global strategy, as well as overseeing organisational development and innovation.
Previously, Mohini was Deputy Director of Communication and Information Management where she oversaw a wide range of internal and external communication projects, with the goal of relieving the suffering and protecting the dignity of people affected by war. For much of her career, she has specialized in communications, working in several domains such as strategic communications, branding, global campaigning, digital communication, data analytics and reputation management both in private and nonprofit organisations.
Mohini began her career working in marketing for an international pharmaceuticals company and later worked for the multinational communications agency Young & Rubicam. Passionate about social and humanitarian issues, she left the private sector and joined the ICRC to run their communications campaign to ban landmines.
She holds an Honours Bachelor’s Degree in Business Studies and Marketing from Edinburgh University and a Postgraduate Degree in Communications from Concordia University, Montreal. She is an ardent supporter of lifelong learning and continues to upskill through various executive education programmes.
Mohini enjoys spending time outdoors, travelling to new places and finding fresh culinary delights with her husband and two children.
William Empson
William Empson is Head of Learning & development , Médecins Sans Frontières Switzerland (MSF). He started his assignment as Head of L&D in November 2019. His unit is in charge of creating , deploying and overseeing all learning activities in MSF’s countries of intervention.William Empson has been working with MSF since 2007 and has been deployed in different field position, notably in Iran, Niger, South Sudan, Haiti, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon. Before MSF William has worked in national NGOs in Syria and Armenia for 3 years. William Empson has completed his professional experience with studies in Humanitarian Action and studies of Adult learning both done in Geneva University.
