Dr. Harry Tzimitras
Director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo - PRIO Cyprus Centre.

In this capacity, he coordinates research and dialogue activities on the search for a political settlement to the island’s division. He is also Senior Fellow of the Atlantic Council in Washington, D.C. (Global Energy Center). He is Professor of International Law and International Relations, specializing in conflict resolution, energy security & geopolitics, the law of the sea, foreign policy, and the Eastern Mediterranean and has published extensively on these subjects. Previously, he held full-time teaching & research positions at Istanbul Bilgi University, Koç University (Istanbul), the University of Cambridge and the Institute of International Relations, Athens, and visiting professorships at a number of universities internationally. He is a member of various Advisory Boards, including the London Energy Club and the Charles University of Prague Centre for Violence, Trauma and Justice. He holds a BSc (Econ.) with Honours in International Relations from the London School of Economics, a PhD summa cum laude in International Law from the Panteion University of Athens and two post-docs from the University of Cambridge and the Institute of International Relations, Athens. 

Torunn Tryggestad
Expert on gender, conflict and peacebuilding. Deputy Director of the Peace Research Institute Oslo, and head of PRIO’s Centre on Gender, Peace and Security since 2015.

Her expertise in UN peacebuilding, peace operations institutions and implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security was recognized when the UN Secretary General appointed her to the Advisory Group of the UN Peacebuilding Fund. She has extensive experience from teaching, training and providing policy advice to Norwegian ministries, the Armed Forces and the justice sector. She had a central role in High-Level Seminars on Gender and Inclusive Mediation Processes, with the UN Department of Political Affairs and the Crisis Management Initiative. She has worked as a researcher and project leader at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, working on UN peacekeeping and peacekeeping capacity-building in Africa. For a year she was an advisor with the UN Section at the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Dr. Phil. Carsten Wieland
German diplomat, former senior UN consultant, Middle East, and conflict expert with high-ranking mediation experience. Associate Fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) and associate of the Middle East Center at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). 

From 2014 till 2019, he served with three UN Special Envoys for Syria as Senior Expert for Intra-Syrian Talks and senior political advisor. Wieland also worked in the Syria team of the Foreign Office in Berlin and as director of the German Information Center for the Arab World in Cairo. Currently, he works as a Senior Policy Adviser for the Middle East in the Green Party Parliamentary Group in the German Bundestag. Wieland has published articles and books on Syria, nationalism, ethnic conflicts in the Balkans and in South Asia, on Islamism and secularism. His latest book “Syria and the Neutrality Trap: The Dilemmas of Delivering Humanitarian Aid through Violent Regimes” was published in July 2021. Wieland also taught conflict and conflict resolution at New York University (NYU) Berlin campus. In 2006 he was a fellow at the Public Policy Institute at Georgetown University, Washington, DC. Wieland was also guest professor at the Universidad del Rosario in Bogotá after having worked as the country representative of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Colombia between 2006 and 2008. Wieland studied history, political science and philosophy at Humboldt University in Berlin, Duke University in North Carolina and at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. He lived in Damascus 2003-2004 where he also learned Arabic.

Dr. Nimrod Goren
President and Founder of Mitvim - The Israeli Institute for Regional Foreign Policies, Co-Founder of Diplomeds - The Council for Mediterranean Diplomacy, and Co-Chair of a regional initiative at President Isaac Herzog's Israeli Climate Forum.

He is also the Senior Fellow for Israeli Affairs at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C.  He holds a Ph.D. in Middle Eastern Studies from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and was a Hubert Humphrey Fellow at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. He was a Teaching Fellow on Middle Eastern Studies at the Hebrew University, and has also worked at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, the Jerusalem Institute for Israel Studies and the Nehemia Levtzion Center for Islamic Studies. Nimrod is a past recipient of the Victor J. Goldberg Prize for Peace in the Middle East and the Centennial Medal of the Institute of International Education, and was selected as a Vamik Volkan Scholar by the International Dialogue Initiative. He serves on the steering committees of the Geneva Initiative and the Turkish-Israeli Civil Society Forum, and is a member of the Global Diplomacy Lab. Nimrod's fields of expertise include Israel’s foreign policy and regional relations, as well as the Middle East peace process.