Our People
Bahtiyar Kurambayev
Associate Professor
is an Associate Professor at GUST. He has a PhD in Mass Communications from the University of Southern Mississippi. Prior to joining GUST in 2023, he has held teaching positions at American University of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan) and KIMEP University (Kazakhstan). His research interests include international journalism practice, journalism education, and ethics in media among others. E-mail: Kurambayev.B@gust.edu.kw
Ben Haworth
Assistant Professor
Dr Ben Haworth is an Assistant Professor of English. He specializes in early modern English literature with a particular focus on Shakespeare’s works. His current interests lie in the social power and agency of Renaissance theatre, contemporary performances and reception of Shakespeare’s plays in the Arab world, and the intersection of Arabic and Western cultures in the academic dissemination of early modern drama. Dr Haworth’s latest monograph, Shakespeare’s Liminal Spaces: Contesting Authority on the Early Modern Stage, was published in 2024 by Manchester University Press. E-mail:
Haworth.B@gust.edu.kw
Carine Zanchi
Assistant Professor of French
Dr. Carine Zanchi holds a Master's degree in Middle Eastern history and a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Lyon 2. She currently holds a position as Assistant Professor in French at the Gulf University of Science and Technology (GUST) in Kuwait. She previously taught French at different universities in Bahrain and Jordan and worked as a high school French teacher in Jordan.Her research interests include: the history of language learning and teaching, textbook analysis for teaching French (focusing on identity and feminism), learning and teaching French language in educational contexts, MFL teacher education, curriculum development, teaching methodologies, teaching contextualization, reading skills in a foreign language, educational technology, and currently AI in language teaching and learning. She has published several articles in French and English and has presented at various international conferences in Cyprus, Belgium, France, Greece, England, Portugal, Jordan, Mexico, Lebanon, and the United States. E-mail: Zanchi.C@gust.edu.kw
Cristina Navarro
Associate Professor
Dr. Cristina Navarro is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Mass Communication Department at Gulf University for Science and Technology in Kuwait. Her research interests include journalism roles, online public relations, social media communication, professionalism, leadership, and public relations competencies, knowledge, and skills. She holds a PhD from Rey Juan Carlos University (Spain) and has served as a visiting scholar at Pennsylvania State University, the University of Alabama, and the University of Florida. E-mail: Navarro.C@gust.edu.kw
Ismael Louber
Assistant Professor
Dr. Ismael Louber is a language educator and researcher specialising in TESOL and English as a Medium of Instruction, with a particular interest in how language education connects to culture and policy in the Gulf region. He earned his Doctorate in Education from the University of Exeter, where he explored the links between language, religious identity, and policy. Currently teaching at Gulf University for Science and Technology in Kuwait, Dr. Louber has also worked in Saudi Arabia, the UK, and France and has contributed to curriculum development, teacher training, and doctoral research supervision. His work focuses on EMI’s influence on identity, the role of religion in English language teaching, and racial issues in TESOL, with a strong emphasis on qualitative research and meaningful discussions in global English education. E-mail: Louber.I@gust.edu.kw
Ismail Lala
Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Gulf University for Science and Technology
Dr. Ismail Lala is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy. Prior to his post at GUST, he taught Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford where he completed his postgraduate and doctoral training. Dr. Lala has also studied at Harvard University and completed seminary training at Darul-Uloom al-Arabiyyah al-Islamiyyah. He holds licenses in hadith transmission and Hanafi jurisprudence and has authored numerous books and peer-reviewed journals on diverse topics from Qur’anic exegesis to Sufi metaphysics, and from Islamic philosophy to religious medical ethics. He is on the International Editorial Board for The Maghreb Review, The Oxford Interfaith Forum, and INJAS. E-mail: Lala.I@gust.edu.kw
Jennifer Lofkrantz
Associate Professor
Dr. Jennifer Lofkrantz is an Associate Professor of History in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences and Chair of the Global Studies Centre. She holds a Ph.D in African History from York University, Toronto and is the author of Ransoming Prisoners in Precolonial Muslim Western Africa (University of Rochester Press, 2023). Her research has also been published in Slavery & Abolition, The Journal of African History, International Historical African Studies, African Economic History, and The Journal of West African History among others. She is primarily a historian of precolonial West Africa and of contemporary northern Nigeria and the Sahel region. Her areas of expertise include historical and contemporary West African jihad movements, historical and contemporary West African ransoming practices, Salafism, Salafi Jihadism, Islamic law (Mālikī), comparative historical and contemporary slavery, and women and gender in Africa. E-mail:
Lofkrantz.J@gust.edu.kw
Manal Hosny
Assistant Professor of French and the Associate Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences.
Dr. Manal Hosny is specializing in 19th-century French Studies. In her research, she adopts an interdisciplinary approach to investigate the social, intellectual and political forces that shaped late 19th-century France. Her current research interests focus on identities (national, social and gender), colonial discourse, transfer of knowledge, school novels and textbooks, and Franco-Egyptian relations. E-mail:
Hosny.M@gust.edu.kw
Marta M Tryzna
Assistant Professor
Dr. Marta Maria Tryzna earned her PhD in linguistics from the University of Iowa in 2009, and then joined the American University of the Middle East (AUM) in Kuwait to set up the MBA managerial communication program and the undergraduate English Writing Program. IN 2011, she joined the English Department at Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST) where she teaches applied linguistics and writing courses. She served as the Writing Program Coordinator and Faculty Senate President at GUST. Her research interests are in applied linguistics, bilingualism, intercultural communication, and language education. Her research has been published by Springer, John Benjamins, Elsevier and Routledge. E-mail: Tryzna.M@gust.edu.kw
Martin Loyato
Associate Professor
Dr. Martín Loyato is an Argentinean-American composer, multi-instrumentalist, improviser, poet, conductor, educator, and visual artist. He is an Associate Professor of Music at GUST. He holds a B.F.A. in Composition and Trumpet Performance from CalArts and a Ph.D. in Composition from Stony Brook University. He has received numerous awards for his music and performances. His compositions span electro-acoustic, orchestral, choral, and multimedia works, with performances across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. He has released three solo albums: Syncretism (2010), Involution (2017), and Cinematic Tales (2019). His work is also featured in books on graphic scores and music therapy, alongside his own poetry collections, Helechos del Alma and K-ro – Poetic Suite of Six Petals. Dr. Loyato played a key role in developing Lebanon's first Bachelor of Performing Arts program at the Lebanese American University. E-mail:
Loyato.M@gust.edu.kw
Nermeen Kassem
Assistant Professor
Dr. Nermeen Kassem is an Assistant Professor in the Mass Communication and Media Department at Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST). She holds a Ph.D. in Communication Studies from the University of York (UK), where her research explored the potential of social media for mobilizing collective action among youth in transitional societies. Her work focuses on new media, civic engagement, and political participation. Nermeen is currently working on a project on "Minorities Media and Social Change in the GCC" in partnership with Qatar University and the Qatar National Research Fund. She has held research positions in the UK, USA, and Middle East, including the BBC and the Open University in London, and visiting Mount Holyoke University and the Radio, Television and Film Department at the University of Texas at Austin as a Research Associate. She also participated in media policy initiatives with the Open Society Foundations and the American University of Beirut, and the Annenberg-Oxford Media Policy Summer Institute.
Shahd Alshammari
Assistant Professor of Literature, Department of English
Dr. Shahd AlShammari is Associate Professor of Literature. Her area of research is Gulf women, Disability Studies, and life writing. She has edited Gulf Women's Lives (University of Exeter Press, UK, 2024) and is the author of Head Above Water (Feminist Press, New York, 2023). E-mail:
Alshammari.S@gust.edu.kw
Soonhyuck Park
Professor
E-mail: Park.S@gust.edu.kw
Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Professor of Philosophy
PhD in Philosophy, Oxford University. Research interests: Aesthetics, Non-Western philosophy, Comparative philosophy. E-mail:
Botz.T@gust.edu.kw
Víctor Parra-Guinaldo
Assistant Professor
Dr. Víctor Parra-Guinaldo obtained both his master’s and Ph.D. in Rhetoric-Composition, Linguistics, and Applied Linguistics at Arizona State University and has since taught a variety of composition and linguistics courses at the undergraduate level and the MATESOL program. His research includes second-language teaching and learning, English as a lingua franca, and written formative writing. He maintains an active publishing agenda and has published with Routledge, Springer, and Equinox Publishing, among others. E-mail: Parraguinaldo.V@gust.edu.kw
Associate Members
Dr. Angelika Palmegiani
University Lecturer
Angelika Palmegiani is a university lecturer at Mohammed V University in Rabat, where she obtained her Ph.D. in Comparative Studies in 2020, within the Department of Arabic Language and Literature. She is a researcher specializing in modern and contemporary Arabic literature, with a particular focus on Morocco. Her work also extends to the field of translation studies, where she explores how literary translation can serve as a political act and a form of resistance against dominant narratives, cultural marginalization, and linguistic hierarchies.
Tanveer Khan
Researcher at Department of Political Science, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, India
Dr. Tanveer Ahmad Khan holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Kashmir, where he specialised in the Geo-strategic implications of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) for India. He currently serves as an Assistant Professor (Contractual) at the Higher Education Department, Government of Jammu & Kashmir, India. Dr. Khan is a former Non-Resident Fellow at the Thammasat University Research Unit in History and International Politics, Thailand as well as Research Associate at Renovate India. His research interests include international politics, foreign policy, South Asian security, Geopolitics, Geostrategy, the Belt and Road Initiative, and the domestic and international politics of Pakistan. He has published extensively in journals and platforms such as the U.S. Department of Defence, SAGE, NIICE Nepal, and Geopolitical Monitor. He has presented papers at national and international conferences in India and abroad. His ongoing work critically explores alliance theories, regional power dynamics, and electoral politics in Jammu and Kashmir.
E-mail: tanveerpolsc@gmail.com
Lisa Blaydes
Professor of Political Science at the University of Stanford
She is the author of Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and State of Repression: Iraq under Saddam Hussein (Princeton University Press, 2018). She holds degrees in Political Science (PhD) from the University of California, Los Angeles and International Relations (BA, MA) from Johns Hopkins University.
Nesma Elsakaan
Assistant Professor of Arabic at the University of Palermo, Italy
Her research covers women’s writings, gender studies, and intertextuality. Currently, she works on the representations of black women in Arabic literature. Among her publications are Islamic Feminism in Egypt: Women, Religion and Gender Justice (2019, in Italian), Niswiyya, Nisā’iyya and Unthawiyya: Some Reflections on Arabic Terms for ‘Feminism’ (Littérature et culture arabes contemporaines, 7/2019), and “Milānīn”: ru’ya taḥarruriyya li-l-lawn wa-l-ğasad min ḫilāl al-sard al-nisā’iyy (Rawāfid, Beirut 2022).
Emily Goshey
GUST research affiliate and a postgraduate research fellow at the Institute for Studies in Global Prosperity
Dr. Emily Goshey specializes in history and anthropology of modern Muslim communities. She holds a PhD in religion from Princeton University. Her forthcoming book narrates the history of Islam in Philadelphia, focusing on how African American converts have worked to indigenise Sunni Islam in the United States. She researches in Arabic, French, and Farsi as well as her native English.
Mariam F. Alkazemi
Assistant professor of public relations at Virginia Commonwealth University
Dr. Mariam F. Alkazemi is a research associate professor of public relations at the Robertson School of Communication at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). The focus of Dr. Alkazemi’s research is on how the structure and content of media affects the quality of life. Originally trained in media effects research, she has published two books including a media law book focusing on Kuwait (Kluwer Law International, 2018) and an edited volume focusing on the Arab diaspora (Lexington Books, 2021). With more than 25 peer-reviewed publications, Dr. Alkazemi has started a secondary agenda in health communication, studying direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising, national health department messages in the Arab Gulf states and is currently examining mental health influencers. As a social scientist, Dr. Alkazemi is interested in data analysis and interdisciplinarity. Her publications appear in International Journal of Communication, Journalism, Health Education Research, and Health Communication. A lifelong learner, she is enrolled in the VCU of Master of Business Administration program on a part-time basis. When she is not working, she enjoys feeding her family--including the cat, dog and fish.
Research Fellows
Dr. Mehrunisha Suleman
Director of Medical Ethics and Law Education at the Ethox Centre, University of Oxford
She is a medically trained bioethicist and public health researcher, whose research experience spans healthcare systems analysis to empirical ethics evaluation. Her research interests intersect global health research ethics and clinical ethics particularly where religious and cultural views and values of patients, clinicians and researchers are pertinent. She has extensive outreach and engagement experience, including working with minority groups and diverse sectors across the UK and globally.
Stay: Apr 19 2023 - Apr 18 2024
Learn more about her here:
https://www.ethox.ox.ac.uk/team/mehrunisha-suleman-1
