Trainer Network

Ms. Lisa Andersson is a research fellow and a member of the Migration and Development group at Maastricht Graduate School of Governance/UNU-MERIT. Her current research focuses on migration management and the migration-development nexus. Lisa has in the past eight years managed large-scale migration and development projects at the OECD, Maastricht University and the University of Gothenburg. Her work has focused on interrelations between public policies and migration, the economic impact of refugees on host communities, and the wellbeing impacts of migration and remittances in countries of origin. Her work has included a collection of quantitative and qualitative migration data in a large number of countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. She regularly conducts capacity building trainings with policymakers in developing countries. Lisa holds a PhD in Development Economics from the University of Gothenburg. 

Paul Baumgartner is a Policy Analyst in the ICMPD Policy Unit. With an economist background, he has acquired sound knowledge and experience in the field of migration research. His recent research is focused on asylum responsibility-sharing among the EU Member States, analysis of asylum statistics and labour market integration of refugees. His academic interests involve asylum policies and quantitative methods.  He is fluent in German, English and Spanish.

Anna has worked in the field of asylum since 1988 at the Swedish Migration Agency, in reception as well as in refugee status determination, for UNHCR in Asia and at the Migration Court of Stockholm for seven years where she headed the training in asylum law and trained nationally at the Judicial Academy. She holds a Master of Laws and a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science (international politics). She has been a trainer nationally and internationally in asylum law for 15 years including at the Law Faculty of Uppsala University. Her focus in work has been on interviewing skills and on jurisprudence as part of informed decision making and training.

Judge Judith Gleeson  has over 20 years of experience in migration and asylum law. She has been an Upper Tribunal Judge at the Asylum and Immigration Chamber of the United Kingdom since 2010. In 2014, she was nominated by EASO to advise the Moroccan Government on draft asylum, trafficking and migration laws. She has been chairing the UTIAC Research and Information Committee since 2010 and has been a Judicial Member of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission since 2005. She is a member of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges (IARLJ).

Gabor has been working in the field of asylum since 2000. After two years of working with the UNHCR, he joined the Hungarian Helsinki Committee (www.helsinki.hu), where he currently works as the director of the refugee programme and as an international trainer. Gábor’s research and advocacy work has been mainly focusing on evidentiary and credibility assessment, country information, gender and intercultural issues in asylum cases, as well as nationality and statelessness. He has conducted research and published a number of studies and articles on these issues while also being a reputable international trainer (with hundreds of training sessions conducted to asylum professionals on various continents).

Project officer at the ICMPD’s Anti-trafficking Programme. Over the past six Ivanka has worked on the implementation of various projects related to capacity building in the field of combating trafficking in human beings and supporting national anti-trafficking responses. She has contributed to reports on numerous national anti-trafficking documents, ranging from referral to anti-trafficking strategies and action plans. Before joining ICMPD, Ivanka served as a senior expert to the Secretariat of the Bulgarian National Commission for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings. Previously, she worked as social worker and psychologist at the NGO Animus Association/La Strada Bulgaria providing psycho-social support to victims of violence. Ivanka holds in Clinical and consultative psychology and in Developmental psychology.

Mr. Joris Kennis is the former director of refugee centers and coordinator of voluntary return for migrants in Belgium. He helped develop a guideline for migrants towards sustainable reintegration in their country of origin. His focus is on aligning counselling interactions with migration management processes. In recent years, he has organized training courses in various countries and facilitated EU round tables and workshops.

Agnieszka Kulesa is an economist at CASE, where she specializes in the labour market, international labour migration and migration policies within and outside EU. During her international career, she gained extensive experience in working in the private and public sector with public servants, public officers, and policymakers. In her previous employment in 2017 –2018 at the Institute of Public Affairs in Warsaw she acted as Head of Migration Policy Programme. Between 2010– 2014 she worked for the Migration Policy Department of the Ministry of the Interior of Poland, where she was responsible for international cooperation in the field of migration, including cooperation within the framework of the Prague Process. She also worked for the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM). Her area of expertise encompasses: labour migration and labour markets, migration policies and their effects, and the future of work. She participated in several EU research projects on migration and labour markets, authored several related articles, and was a panellist in many events in public and private institutions.

Silvia Lobonțiu has a Bachelor's degree in law and a Master's degree in criminology and forensic science from "Dimitrie Cantemir" University Bucharest. She is enrolled in the post-graduate program of "Acad. Andrei Rădulescu" Legal Research Institute of the Romanian Academy, conducting research for her , focusing on illegal migration and criminality. She has worked for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) - Mission in Romania, the Romanian Ombudsman Institution - Department for the Prevention of Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (National Prevention Mechanism). she is part of the Romanian National Council for Refugees (CNRR) team in Bucharest. She has over ten years of experience in the field of migration and has been a member of the Frontex pool of forced return monitors since 2017.

Tony Mihaitoaia graduated from the Romanian Border Police School in 1999, and at the age of 21 started his career at the Border Police. He first worked as a Border Police Officer, conducting border checks at the BCP and coordinating activities of the territorial Border Police Units. As of 2013, Mihaitoaia was engaged into activities at the EU external borders, performing Schengen evaluations in line with the SchEval Mechanism, and contributing to the development of new Entry/Exit system, as well as the European Travel Information and Authorisation System. In 2016-2018, Mahaitoaia held an Expert role at the European Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM), supporting the development and implementation of the IBM related strategies in Moldova and Ukraine. Since April 2018, he works in ICMPD. In his position of Border Management Specialist, he is responsible for the implementation of border management projects, providing expertise on integrated border management and document security in the countries of Eastern Partnership, Central Asia, Western Balkans, Mediterranean and African regions. 

Ionut Mihalache graduated at the Law University of Alexandru Ioan Cuza in Iasi, Romania, started his career in the Romanian Border Police at the age of 26 and has since worked as a border guard in various positions. He`s been deployed at several external borders of the EU as an expert in EBCG Agency operations, as on document falsification and detecting stolen cars and screening expert, conducting interviews with irregular migrants at the external EU Borders in Greece and Bulgaria. In 2013, as a Frontex Support Officer, he coordinated at level the screening activities at the Bulgarian and Greek external borders of EU with Turkey. Since February 2016, he has been seconded by the Romanian Border Police as National Expert to the European Commission, where he is acting as Policy Officer within the Irregular Migration and Policy Unit of the General Directorate for Migration and Home Affairs.

Professor Rainer Münz was Adviser on Migration and Demography at the European Strategy Policy Centre (EPSC), the in-house think tank advising European Commission President J.C. Juncker during his time in office (2014-2019). 

Prior to joining the European Commission, Rainer Münz was – between 2005 and 2015 – Head of Research and Development at Erste Group, a Central European retail bank headquartered in Vienna. He was Senior Fellow at the European think tank Bruegel (Brussels), the Hamburg Institute of International Economics (HWWI) and at the Migration Policy Institute (MPI, Washington DC). He also worked as a consultant for the European Council, the OECD and the World Bank.

Until 2004, Rainer Münz had an academic career as a researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, 1980-1992, and at the Department of Mathematics of Finance/TU Vienna, 2002-2004, as well as a tenured university professor at Humboldt University, Berlin, 1993-2003.

He also was visiting professor at the Universities of Bamberg, UC Berkeley, the American University in Cairo (AUC), Frankfurt/M., HU Jerusalem, Klagenfurt, St. Gallen (HSG), Vienna and Zurich. He currently teaches at the Austrian Diplomatic Academy in Vienna and the Central European University (CEU).

Emil Niculescu has over 24 years of experience in the field of migration and asylum. He graduated migration and border class at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” Police Academy before starting to work as a return officer, also having attribution in combatting illegal migration. For four years, he worked for and coordinated the European integration unit, taking part in numerous projects and contributing to drafting legislation in the field of migration. In 2003, he started to work in the statistics area and in 2004, he was one of the founders of the first risk analysis unit in the area of migration, further on embarking the asylum issues. In the same year, he took the heading position of this unit and kept it ever since. He also served as a Director for strategic management a.i. for a period of almost two years. After that, he returned to his first love – risk analysis.

Elena Petreska is Anti-Trafficking Specialist at the ICMPD Anti-Trafficking Programme. Over the past 12 years, she has been involved in various anti-trafficking projects, aiming to enhance the transnational cooperation on trafficking cases, build capacities and support national authorities in developing their anti-trafficking response. Elena is also conducting qualitative research in various ICMPD initiatives

Carla Rojas Paz is a Migration Data Editor for IOM's Global Migration Data Analysis Centre in Berlin, Germany. At IOM she works primarily on the Global Migration Data Portal project but her experience spans the government sector, NGOs, and international organizations. Prior to IOM, she worked as a Senior Analyst for the U.S. Government Accountability Office where she evaluated a wide-range of government programs, including the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program. She has also worked for a human rights organization researching stateless children of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic, a social service agency where she facilitated the integration of refugee families, and the International Rescue Committee where she evaluated an interpreter services program that hired refugees. Her particular interests include applying social science research to strategic communications for policy. She holds a Masters in International Relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and a Bachelors in Journalism from the University of Florida.

Mr. Andrea Salvini is a labour economist and policy advisor to governments and international organizations on employment, skills development and labour migration issues. Before founding the consulting firm Siloe Labour Solutions, Andrea worked for over 12 years for the ILO, most recently as Labour Economist at the Viet Nam country office. Andrea is a professor of practice and trainer for government management with wide experience in the design of learning strategies for large institutions to implement effective policies and reforms. Andrea has over 18 years of experience as an economist and policy advisor on labour migration, employment and skills development. He served as Technical Advisor for the Migration and Governance Network at the ILO Regional Office for the Arab States in Beirut, Lebanon. Previous experiences as a Research Associate at the University of Sydney, Labour Economist at the ILO Office for Viet Nam, specializing in labour issues and political economy and as a Technical Expert on Employment and Labour Market Policies from 2005 to 2010 at the ILO Sub regional Office for Central and Eastern Europe in Budapest, acquiring expertise on labour and development in transition countries through the implementation of seven development cooperation projects. In addition to these achievements, Andrea has collaborated with the London School of Economics and with the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission in 2005 on the evaluation of the European Structural Funds, and worked for the OECD in 2002-2003 on the Social Aspects of Sustainable Development.

Melissa Siegel is a Professor of Migration Studies at the United Nations University-MERIT and Maastricht University. She has two decades of experience in the field of migration, public policy and development. She is Co-Director of the Maastricht Center for Citizenship, Migration and Development (MACIMIDE). She currently holds the Chair of the UNU Migration Network and is a Research Associate at the Center on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) at the University of Oxford. She is also on the advisory board of the Migration Policy Center, EUI, the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS), Erasmus University Rotterdam. She has done visiting research fellowships at Harvard University, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and the University of Oxford. She has advised, worked on or headed projects for a number of governments and international organizations. She is also regularly involved in migration-related trainings for governments and organizations and teaching at the Bachelor’s, Master’s and PhD level. She has also given advice at the United Nations and European Commission on migration issues. Her main research interest lies in the causes and consequences of migration with a strong emphasis on the linkages between migration and development.

Ronald Skeldon is an Honorary Professor at Maastricht University and an Emeritus Professor at the University of Sussex. He was trained at the Universities of Glasgow, Scotland (BSc Hons) and Toronto, Canada (MA; PhD). He joined the University of Sussex in 2000 and was a core member of the Development Research Centre on Migration, Globalization and Poverty and, from June 2009 to March 2011, was seconded to the Department for International Development (DFID) in London as a Senior Research Fellow. He continued teaching at the University of Sussex until 2017, when he became Emeritus Professor. He joined Maastricht University in 2013 as Professor in Human Geography, becoming Honorary Professor in 2018. He has published widely on issues of migration and development, most recently, the Routledge Handbook of Migration and Development (2020) with Tanja Bastia of the University of Manchester, and a forthcoming Advanced Introduction to Migration Studies for Elgar is due out in 2021. He continues to act as a consultant for many international organizations. He lives in Nairn, Scotland.

Mr. Glen Swan is an independent Advisor on Return and Reintegration. He has extensive experience with return and reintegration programs, having worked on national programs, policy development, and capacity building initiatives. His strengths are sourcing reintegration solutions in third countries, developing operational capacity with service partners, and building customized programs for host governments.

Enrico Tucci is a senior researcher at the Italian National Institute of Statistics. He has a PhD in demography, has been responsible for the Italian official migration statistics and currently works at the Population Census Division. He has been involved for more than 10 years in international cooperation activities as an expert in data management and migration statistics.

Madis Vainomaa is a Project Manager and anti-trafficking expert with the ICMPD. Madis is a lawyer by profession and holds a master’s degree in international business law with altogether over 15 years of professional experience in human rights protection issues, combating trafficking in human beings and irregular migration, protection of rights of refugees and IDPs, monitoring and investigating human rights issues, conducting human rights assessments, reporting and monitoring, improving the institutional capacities to address human rights issues. Before joining the ICMPD Madis worked for a decade with the OSCE in the Western Balkans, followed by a period of five years of independent consultancies with international organisations (UN, OSCE, ILO) on issues of countering human trafficking, including human rights in the context of human trafficking, smuggling of migrants, refugee and displacement issues, in setting up institutional mechanisms to tackle human trafficking (NRM/TRM, state-CSO mechanism). He has been conducting field work and assessments on sensitive matters in challenging environments such as in Turkmenistan, Turkey, Ukraine. He has recently completed managing a 3-year EUR 2.9 million EC-funded Project “Fight against Trafficking I Human Beings and Organized Crime, Phase 2”, covering Azerbaijan, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Moldova, Turkey, Pakistan. Madis is currently providing expert advice and capacity-building to selected beneficiary countries’ authorities (Western Balkan, Central Asia, Ghana, Jordan) and the civil society in supporting the set-up and improvement of victim-centred NRM. Madis speaks fluent English and Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian and a working level Russian.

Professor Sergiu Adrian Vasile is working as professor and PhD coordinator at the Border Police Faculty within the “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” Police Academy in Bucharest, Romania. Sergiu Adrian Vasile has been working in the field of Border Guard training and education for more than sixteen years for BA and Master Studies and several other research areas applied for border . His training expertise includes but is not limited to Applied Informatics for Border Police in the Schengen Area and Technical Surveillance and Control Systems for Schengen Borders. He is engaged in teaching activities, course design, evaluation and assessment, administering and testing on-line sessions, e-learning strategies committees, curricula development, project management and development, and research activities. He is an active member of board and peer reviewer. His expertise in education, both in teaching and professional development training was also mobilised in international meetings, where he delivered presentations and liaised with European agencies and other partners.

Barbora Vegrichtová is an Associate Professor at the Czech Technical University. Until recently, she served as Dean of the Faculty of Security and Law at the Police Academy of the Czech Republic. Her professional career started in 2000 at the Criminal Police and Investigation Service and continued at the Organised Crime Unit of the Czech Police. Since 2011, she has been pursuing an academic career focusing on radicalisation, extremism, terrorism, migration and identification issues.

Michele Vespe is a scientific officer at the European Commission - Joint Research Centre (JRC), where he works for the Knowledge Centre on Migration and Demography (KCMD). He coordinates the activities of a team of researchers in transforming migration data into knowledge and scientific evidence for policymakers. This includes research in the fields of data integration, big data and innovative data sources on migration. He also manages the developments of the KCMD Dynamic Data Hub, a platform that allows and facilitates online analysis and time-series visualisation of multiple datasets on migration. Between 2011 and 2013 he was a Senior Scientist at the NATO Centre for Maritime Research and Experimentation, between 2008 and 2011 he was a postdoctoral researcher at the JRC. He previously spent two years in the industry as a project engineer. He holds a telecommunications engineering degree from the University of Florence (2003) and a PhD in signal processing from University College London (2006). 

Rolandas Volskis holds a Master’s degree in EU Law from the Law Faculty (Vilnius) and a BA from the Kaunas Police Faculty of the Mykolas Romeris University. He started his career as a lecturer at the Border Guard School of the State Border Guard Service of Lithuania, while also teaching European and Business Law at the Vilnius Cooperative College and the SMK University of Applied Social Sciences. Since then Volskis pursued his career at the Border Guard Service, at first carrying out duties as an Investigator, followed by the Senior Specialist position of Border Surveillance Unit, implementing activities at the internal EU borders. In 2018, holding the position of Head of Border Control Unit at the Vilnius Frontier District, Volskis was responsible for international BCPs, including Vilnius and Kaunas airports, as well as border surveillance operations. In the same year, he was shortly engaged with Frontex as a Reporting Officer. Since November 2018, Volskis heads the Professional Subject Unit of the Border Guard School in Vilnius. During all these years, educational activities were part and parcel of Volskis career, with assignments in over 10 countries.

Monika Weber joined ICMPD in 2009 and is currently a Senior Advisor in the Border Management and Security Programme. She started her career with the Czech Police in 1994 and was later seconded to the UN mission. Her portfolio ranges from border management, immigration issues and document security to asylum and combatting trafficking in human beings. Since 2003, she has been carrying trainings and delivering presentations in numerous international fora on border management