External Academic Advisors

A team of experts from the UN and academia supports the research development of our students by reviewing their final papers and providing experts feedback useful for students to further improve their work.
Dr. Nikita Chiu is Ad Astra Distinguished Fellow in Robotic and Outer Space Governance at the Space Engineering Research Center. She is  listed as one of SSPI's "20 under 35" professionals to watch in the space and satellite industry in 2019. Dr. Chiu is a former Research Affiliate at the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge. She is also the former Research Fellow in Robotics and Space Technologies at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, where she led the Robotics and Outer Space Governance research programmes. Prior to her career in space governance, Dr. Chiu lectured on Foreign Policy and International Relations in Hong Kong and Tallinn, and was an Associate Lecturer in the UK.
Dr. Chiu's research investigates the dynamics between technological advances and the international order,  with a focus on the political and security implications brought by the increasing commercialization of robotics, quantum, and space technologies.
Dr. Alistair D. Edgar serves as the Executive Director of the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS). He is Associate Professor of Political Science at Laurier, where he has worked since 1993. Outside of the university, Dr. Edgar is president of the New Delhi, India-based International Jurist Organization (IJO); and sits on the board of the Canadian Landmines Foundation. Dr Edgar’s research interests involve issues of transitional justice in war-to-peace transitions and post-conflict peace building. He has conducted research fieldwork on this subject in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Kosovo, and northern Uganda. Dr. Edgar holds MA in Political Science from the University of British Columbia (1985), and PhD in Political Science from Queen’s University (1993).
Dr. Margarete Maria Grandner is Head and Professor at the Department of Development Studies of the University of Vienna. University of Vienna. She studied history, English and American language and literature as well as economics at the University of Vienna where she teaches since 2001. She was a guest Professor at the University of Minnesota in 1988, at the University of Chicago in 1994 and 2008, and at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands, in 2010.
Dr. Gunther Hauser is Head of the Group International Security at the Institute for Strategy and Security Policy, National Defence Academy, Vienna. He has been delivering lectures on international and EU security policy at universities, at General Staff Courses, and at military staff courses in Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, China, Germany, Poland, and Switzerland. Since 2006 Dr. Hauser is member of the board of the Scientific Forum on International Security at the German Armed Forces Command and Staff College, Hamburg. He has been published 25 books and more than 200 articles in 13 European nations, in the U.S. and in Mongolia.
Matteo Landi is of Italian and Belgian ancestors, immediately after he graduated in 2003 in Italy, he moved to Ethiopia where he joined UNESCO. Only two years later he was offered a position at UNICEF Ethiopia office, where he developed a milestone campaign (called Speak Africa), designed to enhance youth participation in decision making processes, dialogue and on-line based collaboration. Her was part of the task force that developed the first revolving fund scheme for young women entrepreneurs in North Ethiopia. In 2008 he joined UNIDO in Vienna where he was called to design and apply innovative solution to the constant growing problems of youth unemployment. Since then he has developed and implemented several programmes on Youth Employment and Entrepreneurship for UNIDO. He has represented UNIDO to the Interagency Network on Youth Development from its inception.
Professor Markus Kornprobst holds the Chair in International Relations at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna. He previously taught at the School of Public Policy at University College London and Magdalen College at Oxford University. He held research fellowships at the Mershon Center at the Ohio State University, and the Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford University. His research appears in leading journals in the discipline such as International Organization, European Journal of International Relations, International Studies Review, Review of International Studies, and Millennium. He is the author of Irredentism in European Politics (Cambridge University Press) and co-editor of Metaphors of Globalization (Palgrave).
Dr. Grzegorz Donocik, is a Former United Nations Industrial Development Organizations' Official.
He served as Chief, Europe and NIS Programme, Advisor and Expert on UNIDO and UN related matters and economic and industrial development cooperation. Mr. Donocik also served in the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department of International Organizations in Warsaw. He is a board member of the Association of the former Industrial Development Experts (AFIDE), UNIDO Senior Professional Volunteers Group, Member of the International Council of the Organization for International Economic Relations, OiER, and Member of the Academic Council on the United Nations (ACUNS).
Dr. Johannes Maerk, political scientist and philosopher, Director of the Ideaz Institute, Vienna; Professor at University of Quintana Roo, Mexico (leave of absence); research and teaching appointments at University of Vienna/ Austria, Simon Fraser University/Vancouver/ Canada, the University of the West Indies/Jamaica, Universidad Estatal de Rio de Janeiro (UERJ)/Brazil and Warsaw University/Poland. Specialist in nonwestern and comparative social sciences (political thought, IR), epistemology, South-South relations and development issues. Research projects in Latin America and the Middle East. Among his publications are “Existe una epistemologia latinoamericana”, articles about BRICS/IBSA, political thought, and a book “Como democratizar la democracia”.
Ms. Elena Rigacci Hay works as a Policy Coordination Officer at the Terrorism Prevention Branch of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime - in Vienna- since September 2011.
 After a three-year assignment at the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, she joined, in 2005, the Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate as Political Affairs Officer and later as Special Assistant to its Executive Director, where she worked until 2009. Ms. Rigacci Hay holds a Master’s Degree in Government and Politics from St. John’s University, New York, and a Master’s Degree in Political Science, with a specialization in International Relations, from the University of Bologna, Italy.