Dr. Nataliia Hendel is a research fellow at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights and a researcher at the Institute of Information, Security and Law of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine. Dr Nataliia Hendel is a member of the Ukrainian Association of International Law, a member of the European Society of International Law and a member of the Environmental Peacebuilding Association. Dr Hendel holds an LLM and a PhD in international law.
Dr. Nataliia Hendel is an expert and trainer on international humanitarian law of the Ukrainian Red Cross Society, the Training Centre for Prosecutors of Ukraine, The Higher School of Public Administration, and the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union. She is an expert in the working group of the Council of Europe Programme for Human Rights Education for Legal Professionals (HELP) within the “HELP for Ukraine including during wartime” to develop a course on international humanitarian law and human rights. She was a member of Ukraine’s Interdepartmental Commission for the Implementation of International Humanitarian Law (2015–2017). She is a member of the working group on the protection of the natural environment from the consequences of armed conflict of the Interdepartmental Commission on the Application and Implementation of International Humanitarian Law in Ukraine (2023).

Maryna Shevtsova is a Senior post-doctoral FWO Fellow at KU Leuven (2023/2026). She holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Humboldt University, Berlin (2017), an MA in Gender Studies from Central European University, Budapest (2013), and is a Fulbright (University of Florida 2018/19) and Swedish Institute (Lund University 2020/2021) Alumna. Prior to starting her work at KU Leuven, she was an MSCA Co-Fund EUTOPIA Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (2021/2023). In the past, Shevtsova held visiting fellowships at Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, and Middle East Technical University, Ankara.

Shevtsova is a co-founder of Equal Opportunities Platform, a Dnipro-based Ukrainian NGO working towards combating discrimination and promoting gender equality. In 2022, she received the Emma Goldman Award for her work as a feminist scholar and human rights activist. Her research interests include LGBTQ rights and activism in Central and Eastern Europe, queer migration, and anti-gender movements. Her work was published in such journals as Sexuality & Culture, the Problems of Post-Communism, ACME: American Journal of Critical Geographies, and European Societies. Her recent publications include the monograph LGBTI Politics and Value Change in Ukraine and Turkey Exporting Europe? (Routledge 2021) and an edited volume (with Radzhana Buyantueva) on LGBTQ+ Activism in Central and Eastern Europe (Palgrave Macmillan 2020). She is also the sole editor of an edited volume, Feminist Perspectives of Russia's War in Ukraine: Hear Our Voices (upcoming with Lexington Books, February 2024).

Born in Ukraine and educated in various national and international institutions, Viktoriia Gorbunova has dedicated her life to working in mental health and psychological education. Since 2005, Viktoriia has worked in Ukrainian academia, progressing to professor, head of the Clinical Psychology department and Leader of the MSc Program (2015). Starting from 2021, she leads the EuroPsy National Awarding Committee, which brought to Ukraine the EU system of qualification standards for psychologists. Among research initiatives, the most fruitful are exploring the psychological consequences of the Holodomor (2020), the largest man-made famine in Ukraine’s history that killed around 5 million people; leading the National Psychological Association research team that revealed culturally conditioned ways of mental health perception (2021), health care and problem-solving (2021), and conducted the first epidemiological mental health study among Romani in Ukraine; co-managing the project for the Ukrainian Public Health Centre (2021-2023) on psychological interventions (CBT, Brief intervention, Problem management plus, Self-Help Plus) to reduce alcohol consumption and improve the mental health of MAT Program participants with presiding epidemiology study. Her current work is focused on further developing and researching the efficacy of Universal Mental Health Training (UMHT) in the position of Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Luxembourg. 

The European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) is an independent, non-profit legal and educational organization dedicated to enforcing human rights worldwide. Together with those affected and partners worldwide, ECCHR uses legal means to end impunity for those responsible for torture, war crimes, sexual and gender-based violence, corporate exploitation and fortressed borders.

Margaret Gold is the Coordinator of the Citizen Science Lab at Leiden University, which is a project incubator and knowledge hub that brings together scientists, policy makers, citizens, and other stakeholders in participatory research projects that address scientific questions and urgent societal issues.  Margaret’s research focus within the ‘Science of Citizen Science’ is on Citizen Observatories for community based environmental monitoring, and the impact they can have on policy, decision making, and behaviour change.

Ambassador Marie Jacobsson, is the former principal legal adviser on international law at the Swedish MFA She was  Member of the UN International Law Commission 2007–2016 and Special Rapporteur for the topic Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflicts. She is, member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, arbitrator under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, arbitrator under the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty and Conciliator of the Court of Conciliation and Arbitration within the OSCE, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. She has extensive experience of high-level multilateral and bilateral negotiations in the areas of international humanitarian law, the law of the sea, international environmental law, boundary delimitation and regional security. She holds a Ph.D. in international law and is Associate Professor at Lund University.

Director of the Ukrainian Scientific Center of the Ecology of the Sea of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of Ukraine (UkrSCES), Odesa, Ukraine.

Key Qualifications: Oceanology; assessment, diagnosis and forecast of marine ecosystems and marine biodiversity by mathematic modelling; marine environmental monitoring (devising of methodology, organisation and performance).

Membership in Professional Bodies: National Focal Point (Ukraine) - Global Ocean Observing System, Ukrainian Representative of Focal Point of Pollution Monitoring and Assessment of the Black Sea (BSC), Member of Advisory Group of Pollution Monitoring and Assessment of the Black Sea (PS BSC), Member of Ukrainian Geographical Society.

Participation in 25 expeditions in the Black Sea, Atlantic Ocean and Southern Ocean on the research vessels, research activities in the field of marine ecology (ecological monitoring, environmental protection, assessment of anthropogenic influence on the environment, environmental expertise, environmental audit).