Team
Jana Krause
Jana Krause is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo. She is Principal Investigator of the ResilienceBuilding project. Her research focuses on gender, peace and security; climate change, peacebuilding and social resilience; communal violence and civil wars; and local and international peace processes. She has conducted extensive fieldwork on these topics in Indonesia and Nigeria, and more recently in Myanmar, Kenya, and South Sudan. She is author of Resilient Communities: Nonviolence and Civilian Agency in Communal War (Cambridge University Press, 2018) and Co-Editor of Civilian Protective Agency in Violent Settings (Oxford University Press, 2023).
Imrana Buba
Imrana Buba is a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the ResilienceBuilding project. He researches civilian self-protection, political violence, and post-conflict recovery, with a focus on northern Nigeria. His doctoral dissertation examined variation in civilian self-protection strategies during conflict, their protective effects, and their unintended negative consequences in Nigeria. His work has been published in Global Studies Quarterly and Political Geography and is under review in the Journal of Peace Research, Security Studies, African Affairs, and International Studies Review. He received the Conflict Research Society’s 2024 Cedric Smith Prize for the best peace and conflict research by a PhD candidate, and the International Studies Association’s 2026 Kenneth Boulding Award for the best graduate student paper in peace studies presented at the annual ISA conference. Imrana holds an Msc in Africa and International Development from the University of Edinburgh, UK.
Leonor Toscano
Leonor Toscano is a Doctoral Candidate and Research Fellow at the Department of Political Science at the University of Oslo. Her doctoral research focuses on the gender dimensions of civilian agency and local peacebuilding in the context of communal and electoral violence in Kenya, particularly on women’s inclusion in Local Peace Committees.
Marika Miner
Marika Miner is a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the ResilienceBuilding project. She holds a PhD from the Department of Political Science at the University of California, Davis. Her project research focuses on dynamics of communal violence, and climate change and local peace building in African countries.
Debjani Banerjee
Debjani Banerjee is a Researcher on the Resilience Building project, having grown into the role from her start as a Research Assistant. Her research focuses on climate and conflict, peacebuilding, and women, peace and security. She has completed her Master’s in Global Development Studies from Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU).
James Mawien Manyuol
James Mawien Manyuol is a Research Assistant for the ResilienceBuilding Project. He is currently pursuing a master’s degree in journalism at the University of California, Berkeley, as a Mastercard Foundation Scholar. Prior to that, he worked as a journalist for Radio Miraya of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS), Rumbek Field Office. His research interest focuses on the intersection between communal conflicts, climate-induced human migration, and fledgling political institutions
Research Associates
Louise OIsson
Louise Olsson is Research Director of the Global Norms, Politics and Society Department and leads PRIO’s Gender Research Group. Her research focuses on the gendered dynamics of war, effects of conflict resolution on women’s rights, and Women, Peace and Security (WPS) in Nordic national security and defense policies and implementation.
Sebastian van Baalen
Sebastian van Baalen is a Research Associate for the ResilienceBuilding project. He is an Associate Professor at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University. His research focuses on the dynamics of violence and governance in civil war, electoral violence, nonviolent action, and postwar violence.
Kathleen Klaus
Kathleen Klaus is a Research Associate with the ResilienceBuilding project and Senior Associate Lecturer in the Department of Peace and Conflict Studies at Uppsala University. Her research focuses on the causes and consequences of electoral and communal violence, elections, land rights, climate change, and forced migration.
Rachel Ibreck
Rachel Ibreck is an Ethics Advisor with the ResilienceBuilding project and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at Goldsmiths, University of London. Her research focuses on the politics of human rights, justice and memory in Africa.
Corinna Jentzsch
Corinna Jentzsch is a Research Associate with the ResilienceBuilding project and Assistant Professor of International Relations at the Institute of Political Science at Leiden University. Her research focuses on civilian collective action during civil war and conflict transformation and escalation.
Former Researchers
Melanie Sauter
Melanie Sauter was Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the ResilienceBuilding project. She is an Assistant Professor at the University of Mannheim. Her research focuses on the micro-dynamics of political violence, especially the role of humanitarian organizations and peacekeepers in conflict and the climate-conflict-peacebuilding nexus.