Dr. Stefan Andreasson is Reader in Comparative Politics and currently teaches American and energy politics in the School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics at Queen's University Belfast. His primary interest in the political economy of development with a recent emphasis on energy and natural resources, including how international oil and gas companies have shaped twentieth-century international relations and their role as pivotal actors in shaping the current energy transition. His research has mostly focussed on sub-Saharan Africa, especially South Africa, and the post-colonial world. The case of the United States has more recently been integrated into his research agenda by approaching American politics from a comparative perspective in the context of American Political Development. Specific interests include political realignments in American history, race relations (e.g., comparative studies of Jim Crow and minority rule in Southern Africa) and US energy politics with a focus on the history of "Big Oil". Dr Andreasson's research has been funded by the ESRC World Economy and Finance Research Programme, the British Academy, the Nuffield Foundation and the DfE Global Challenges Research Fund.

Dr Hargy is a Visiting Scholar at the Centre for the Study of Ethnic Conflict at Queen's University Belfast. His current research examines the continuing role of United States third-party intervention in post-conflict Northern Ireland. He also writes extensively on contemporary American politics and elections. During Dr Hargy’s time at Queen’s University Belfast and the Mitchell Institute he was a Research Assistant to Harvard University’s Professor Melani Cammett for her new book project, Toleration. Externally, he is the Co-Convenor of the Political Studies Association of Ireland’s “Specialist Peace and Conflict Group” and the Irish Association of American Studies ECR Caucus Chair.

Kevin McGinnis is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science at The Graduate Center, City University of New York majoring in comparative politics. He is holder of a Bachelor's degree in Government from Cornell University, a MRes degree in Politics with Arabic from SOAS, University of London, and a MPhil degree in Political Science from The Graduate Center, CUNY.

He is in Belfast for his PhD project, The Political-Economic Consequences of Employment-Generating Businesses in Belfast and Beirut. He is interested in issues of political violence, contentious politics, post-conflict and unequal development, politics of the modern Middle East, and normative political theory. His paper, Adorno, Red Army Faction, and Constituent Power: Sovereign Crime in Democracies, has been accepted for presentation at the 2024 conferences of the Midwest Political Science Association, Northeastern Political Science Association, and the American Political Science Association. He is also an adjunct lecturer at Baruch College, having taught classes in Introduction to US Politics, Politics of the Modern Middle East and North Africa, Introduction to Comparative Politics, and The United States in the Age of Globalization since Spring 2020.

Ronit Berger Hobson is a lecturer in Politics and International Studies at Queen's University Belfast. Her research interests lie within the realm of international security, broadly defined. Specifically, she is interested in conflict processes, with a focus on organisational and leadership perspectives. In her work she seeks to understand under what circumstances violent non-state actors choose violence over cooperation and examines how factors from the conflict setting, the organisational makeup, the relationship it has with diaspora communities, and the type of leaders it has, interact in shifting organisational strategic preferences.