Master in Human Rights and Humanitarian Action (23 June)

• Wednesday 23 June - 5 to 7 pm CET
• Guests of Honour: Ambassador Elayne Whyte Gómez, Former Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the United Nations & Vice-Foreign Minister of Costa Rica, and Antoine Bernard, Director, Advocacy and Strategic Litigation, Reporters Sans Frontières
• Followed by networking session with 2020 PSIA graduates 
• Please register online

Master in International Development (23 June)

• Wednesday 23 June - 5.30 to 7.30 pm CET
• Guest of Honour: Louis Pizarro, CEO of Solthis; PSIA faculty member
• Followed by networking session with 2020 PSIA graduates
• Please register online

Master in International Security (24 June)

• Thursday 24 June - 5 to 7 pm CET
• Guest of Honour: Dr Christina Schori Liang, Head of Terrorism, Geneva Center for Security Policy; PSIA faculty member
• Followed by networking session with 2020 PSIA graduates
• Please register online

Master in International Public Management (28 June)

• Monday 28 June - 5 to 7 pm CET
• Guest of Honour: Ambassador Dr. Ursula Plassnik, former Foreign Minister of Austria; current Ambassador to Switzerland; PSIA faculty member
• Followed by networking session with 2020 PSIA graduates
• Please register online

Master in Environmental Policy & Master in International Energy (29 June)

• Tuesday 29 June - 5 to 7 pm CET
• Guest of Honour: Julie Trottier, Research Director, CNRS; PSIA faculty member 
• Followed by networking session with 2020 PSIA graduates
• Please register online

Master in International Economic Policy (29 June)

• Tuesday 29 June - 5.30 to 7.30 pm CET
• Guest of Honour: Carlo Monticelli, Governor, Council of Europe Development Bank 
• Followed by networking session with 2019 and 2020 PSIA graduates
• Please register online

Antoine BERNARD (Reporters Without Borders)

A human rights, international justice and NGOs renowned expert and practitioner, Antoine Bernard is Reporters Without Borders (RSF)'s Director for Advocacy and Strategic Litigation and Senior Fellow with the Institute on Advanced Judicial Studies (IHEJ). He holds leadership positions in the World Movement for Democracy, the Syrian Center for Media and Freedom of Expression and La Maison des Femmes de Saint Denis, and serves as a jury member of the French Republic Simone Veil Prize for Gender Equality. He previously led the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) as its CEO and Reporters Without Borders as its deputy Director General. He joined SciencesPo's Paris School of International Affairs from its launch in 2010 and teaches especially on the Role of NGOs in human rights protection and strategic litigation for international crimes. He recently published The ICC system against mass atrocities: a plea for a strong prosecutorial complementarity strategy (in Politorbis 68, 1/2020, Nov. 2020, FDFA, Switzerland).

Dr Christina LIANG (Geneva Center for Security Policy)

Dr. Liang will lead the 21st edition of the New Issues in Security Course. She designs and directs courses on Preventing Violent Extremism and on the Impact of Covid-19 on Transnational Organised Crime. Dr. Liang is an active contributor to GCSP’s Track Two diplomacy and dialogue events.

Dr. Liang is the editor of Europe for the Europeans: The Foreign and Security Policy of the Populist Radical Right and has contributed to the 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2019 Global Terrorism Index Reports. She is an active member of the UN’s Global Counter Terrorism Research Network and advises the UN Security Council’s 1267 Committee on terrorist financing. Dr. Liang has testified for the US National Intelligence Council, the US State Department, the European Commission, and the European Forum for Urban Security and has given multiple presentations for the NATO Defense College in Rome and the OSCE Secretariat in Vienna.

Dr Liang is a member of the RESOLVE Network Research Advisory Council of the US Institute for Peace and a global expert for the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime.

Dr. Liang was an Adjunct Faculty member for Boston University from 2008-2013 and is currently a Visiting Professor at the Paris School of International Affairs, Sciences Po, Paris.

She holds a doctorate in International Relations and an MA in History and International Politics from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland.

Dr Carlo MONTICELLI (Council of Europe Development Bank)

Carlo Monticelli has been appointed to the post of Governor of the Council of Europe Development Bank (CEB), effective from 18 December 2021, for a five-year mandate. Dr Monticelli, an Italian national, has been serving as CEB Vice-Governor for Financial Strategy since November 2015. In this capacity he contributed to the success of the CEB in responding to the social challenges Europe is facing. 

Before joining the CEB, he served for more than a decade at the Italian Treasury, representing Italy in a wide spectrum of international fora and institutions, including as EFC member, G7 Deputy, G8 Financial Sous-Sherpa, G20 Deputy, IMFC Deputy, FSB member and OCDE WP3 member. 

In his capacity as Head of International Financial Relations, he was for many years alternate governor for Italy at the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the African Development Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, and served on the Board of Directors of the European Investment Bank and the Italian Export Credit Insurance Agency (SACE). 

Before joining the Treasury, his career straddled both private and public sectors, including as Head of European Economics, Global Markets Research, at the Deutsche Bank, London, and Deputy Director in the Research Department of the Bank of Italy. 

Dr Monticelli, who holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Ancona and a M.Sc. in Economics from the University of York, and has carried out post graduate studies at Oxford University (Brasenose College). He has been a visiting professor in the International Economics Department at the Graduate Institute in Geneva and a visiting scholar in the Economics Department of the MIT. Over the years he has delivered seminars and lectures in various other universities, participated in numerous academic and policy conferences, published articles in several international academic journals, a book with Oxford University Press and, in 2019, Reforming Global Economic Governance, with Routledge. 

Louis PIZARRO (Solthis)

Dr. Louis Pizarro is the CEO of Solthis, an NGO working on health system strengthening in Africa. He previously worked as a clinical physician before joining Solthis in 2004, first as Head of Mission in Niger - where he supported the Nigerian government in the establishment of the National Program for Access to HIV/AIDS Treatment, then as CEO since 2006. Louis Pizarro is also the current leader of Coordination Sud's health commission - a French platform of international development NGOs.

Aside from his medical training, he holds a degree in Political Sciences from Sciences Po and a Health MBA from EHESP/LSE/ESCP Europe.

Louis Pizarro has been teaching global health issues at Sciences Po since 2007, first for the "Development Economics" Master, then for the Global Health concentration. He also teaches Global Health and development at La Sorbonne, Bordeaux University and Paris VI/Paris VII.

Ursula PLASSNIK (Ambassador, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Austria)

Ambassador Dr. Ursula Plassnik studied law at the University to Vienna (Dr. iur.), followed by postgraduate European studies at the College of Europe in Bruges/Belgium. In 1980 she joined the Austrian Foreign Service and gained broad experience in multilateral representations, delegations and negotiations (CSCE/Helsinki Process, Council of Europe, EFTA, EU, UN) and in the Office of the Legal Advisor of the Foreign Service. From 1997 to 2004, she served as Chief of Staff of Dr. Wolfgang Schüssel (ÖVP, Austrian People’s Party), Minister for Foreign Affairs and Vice-Chancellor and, as of February 2000, Federal Chancellor (Prime Minister).

In October 2004, Ursula Plassnik was appointed Minister for European and International Affairs in the Schüssel government. During the Austrian-EU presidency in 2006 she chaired the EU Council of Foreign ministers. Ursula Plassnik remained Foreign Minister in the Gusenbauer government until December 2008. She was a Member of the Austrian Parliament and worked as special envoy for International Women’s Issues at the Federal Ministry for European and International Affairs until August 2011. From September 2011 to August 2016, she was Ambassador of Austria to France and Monaco and Austrian Representative to the UNESCO. From September 2016 to June 2021, Ursula Plassnik served as Austria’s Ambassador to the Swiss Confederation.

Dr Julie TROTTIER (French National Scientific Research Center)

Julie Trottier is director of research at the National Scientific Research Center (CNRS), France, and lecturer at Sciences Po Paris where she teaches the course Critical Political Ecology of Water. With a background in chemistry, political science and Islamic studies, she has carried out research on water over the past 25 years with a strong focus on Palestinian water politics and management. She co-authored with David Brooks a proposal for a water accord between Israel and Palestine that was promoted by Friends of the Earth Middle East (now named EcoPeace) and received the 2013 Water International Honourable Mention from the International Water Resources Association. She is a consultant for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations within their water governance project in Palestine, Tunisia and Morocco. She is associate editor of the journal Water Policy. She directed the project Of Lands and Waters, funded by the National Research Agency (ANR) from 2013 to 2017. She directed the project The Paracommons of Palestinian Water, funded by the French Development Agency (AFD), from 2016 to 2020. She is presently coordinating a project mapping the spread of Covid-19 at a fine scale through the surveillance of an urban wastewater network. More recently, she has been working on the systematic interactions between water tenure and biodiversity.

Elayne WHYTE (Ambassador, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Costa Rica)

Elayne Whyte is a Costa Rican diplomat and academic. Between 2014-2020 she served as Ambassador, Permanent Representative of Costa Rica to the UN in Geneva and in 2017 she presided over the United Nations Conference that negotiated and adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. She held different leadership positions in disarmament treaty-regimes such as the ATT, the APLMC and the CCM. Elayne Whyte served as Vice Foreign Minister of Costa Rica -the first woman to be appointed in that position-, she worked as Executive Director of the Mesoamerica Project for Integration and Development and also has served as consultant to international organizations on regional integration, security, and human rights. She has been a Professor and Researcher at the School of International Affairs at the National University of Costa Rica, and is the author of a series of publications on regional integration, security, foreign policy and human rights issues.