Huw Roberts

Executive Director

• Huw is a postgraduate student at the Oxford Internet Institute and a Research Assistant for the Digital Ethics Lab. His research centres on the ethics of emerging technologies, with a particular focus on China. Huw holds a BA in Politics from Durham University and has also spent time studying at the University of Amsterdam and Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He has professional experience working for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in China and in the financial sector for Barclays.

Lukas Fiala

Director, London

• Lukas is an MSc candidate in International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He worked in Ethiopia to observe China’s increasingly complex engagement with African economies, politics and societies and focuses on China’s role in UN-peacekeeping and the security impact of Chinese investments in African political economies. Lukas has conducted research with a regional focus on the wider Horn of Africa and is interested in advancing the conceptual understanding of the Africa-China relationship by drawing on International Relations theory.

Ingrid Høegh

Secretary and Project Analyst

• Ingrid is an MPhil in Development Studies candidate at the Oxford Department of International Development (ODID). She previously studied Chinese and African history at Durham University, and specialised in East Asian studies at the National University of Singapore. Ingrid has experience working for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Delhi and the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Sarajevo. Her current research focuses on women’s political empowerment in Delhi, India.

Jihane Benamar

Co-Founder 

• Jihane Benamar is an MPhil candidate at the Oxford Department of International Development (ODID) and is a committee member of the Oxford University China Africa Network (OUCAN). Her previous research has focused on water security in the Gulf, the opportunities for youth in the MENA region after the Arab Spring, and the challenges facing Morocco's development model. She is currently researching security sector reforms and post-conflict reconstruction in West Africa.

Batool Abid

Co-Founder 

• Batool Abid is an MPhil candidate at the Oxford Department of International Development (ODID). Her previous work has been on gender equity (with USAID), religious freedoms in Pakistan (with The Asia Foundation), and rigging in the 2013 National Assembly Elections in Pakistan. Currently, Batool is working on the impact of the blasphemy law on religious minorities in Lahore.

Brian Oosthuizen

Co-Founder and Advisor

Brian Oosthuizen is an MPhil candidate at the Oxford Department of International Development (ODID) and is a committee member of the Oxford University China Africa Network. His past research has examined the shifting dynamics of China-Africa industrial relations and its impact on human development outcomes, the issues of Overseas Development Assistance (ODA), and LGBT+ issues in international development. His current work examines the experiences of violence among LGBT+ refugees in East Africa.

Charlotte Baker

Project Lead

• Charlotte is an MPhil candidate at the Oxford Department of International Development. She has experience in country risk analysis for development finance, trade and private sector consulting, and parliamentary advocacy. While studying Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Kings College London she focused on the economic and political impact of Chinese infrastructure investment in Ethiopia and Djibouti. During her graduate degree, she plans to expand her research to post-conflict environments in the broader region, as well as advance her Mandarin.

Karoline Becker

Project Analyst

• Karoline Becker is an MPhil candidate at the Oxford Department of International Development. Her previous research has been on economic empowerment of smallholder farmers in West Africa and the impact of health care infrastructure on women in East Africa. In her previous degree she focused on the impact of South-South cooperations in international development. 

Julia Hampton

Project Analyst

• Julia Hampton is in her first year of the MPhil in Development Studies. She is passionate about Africa's development: from geopolitics to urban development strategies, particularly pertaining to socioeconomic integration. In South Africa she ran the Non-Profit Organization Phaphama SEDI, working on Black Economic Empowerment to link entrepreneurs into the formal sector economy. At Oxford, she is an Executive Director of the Oxford University China Africa Network which organizes a Seminar Series and an Annual Conference, hosting academics, politicians, economists, activists and other relevant individuals to help build knowledge networks around the effects of growing Chinese investment in Africa - with the goal of helping to facilitate a 'win-win.' 

Aisha Ryan 

Project Analyst

• Aisha Ryan is an MPhil candidate at the Oxford Department of International Development (ODID). She has experience working for the Treasury Board Secretariat of Canada, and the National Congress of Australia’s First Peoples. She previously studied International Relations and Health Studies at the University of Toronto, where her research focused on rebuilding fiscal systems in the post-conflict context. She hopes to elaborate on this work during her graduate degree.