Tayif Ahmed

Tayif Ahmed is an undergraduate student majoring in Political Science at Concordia University. His interest in politics grew from back home in Bangladesh, where he was constantly surrounded by talks of local and national politics of Bangladesh. His participation in political campaigning during elections as well as delegating in various model UNs piqued his interest in politics and human rights, both international and national. His interest in the South Asian diaspora and youth politics led him to participate in student run organizations such as the Bangladeshi Students’ Association of Concordia as VP External and later as an Independent Councilor of the Arts and Science Federation of Associations. He hopes to be able to one day research human rights sustenance and violations in South Asian countries such as Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. As an intern at MIGS, Tayif looks forward to contributing to the organization’s goals and objectives, as well as expanding his knowledge on genocide and human rights studies and how to utilize such knowledge to create more efficient policies.

Michaela de Toldi

Michaela de Toldi is an undergraduate student in Political Sciences with a Minor in Law and Society at Concordia University. Her academic interests surround international relations, genocides, conflicts entrenched in religious beliefs, and human rights.

During her expatriations in her childhood, namely in Abu Dhabi and Hong Kong, Michaela witnessed many human rights violations especially toward ethnic minorities exploited for their manpower and cheap labour. These constant human rights violations pushed her to realize that she wanted to work in a field that could have an impact, in which meaningful actions had to take place through partnerships and cooperation to challenge the status quo and bring about change.

She wishes to further her studies by doing a master’s degree at Science Po Paris in International Security. She will be joining MIGS as a Human Rights Officer for the next months and assist in planning, outreaching, organizing conferences and drafting external communications.

Katerina Sviderska

Katerina Sviderska is a master’s student in Political Science at Université de Montréal. She holds a bachelor’s in International Studies from the same university, as well as a certificate in Social Science from SciencesPo Paris. Her academic interests surround the issues of political violence, nationalism and propaganda. Under the supervision of Magdalena Dembinska, Katerina is currently writing her thesis, which analyses the factors motivating Russian soldiers to commit war atrocities against Ukrainian civilians. She also works for the Chair of Ukrainian Studies at University of Ottawa.

Tim William Zøllner

Tim William Zøllner is currently a master's student in rhetoric at the University of Copenhagen with a particular interest in rhetorical citizenship, which is a concept within the field of rhetoric that covers the rights, opportunities and limitations of the democratic citizen to be able to participate actively in the public debate. In his education, Tim has followed the course Misinformation and democracy and written his bachelor's thesis on the Danish government's crisis management of Corona.

Beside his studies, Tim is a junior consultant at Rhetorica, a Danish consultancy that teaches international, Danish companies and ministries in communication and management. Tim has worked freelance and published several analyzes of the political rhetoric in Denmark and abroad for the foreign policy magazine RÆSON, in which he, among other things, has interviewed the former professor of international law and judge for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Frederik Harhoff, about war crimes in Ukraine, analyzed Joe Biden's speech in Poland's capital Warsaw last year and the Danish Prime Minister's New Year's speech. Tim has previously been a press officer and intern in the press department of the Danish political party Det Radikale Venstre inside the Danish parliament, where he built bridges between politicians and the press, advised the politicians on their media appearances, wrote speeches and articles for the politicians and was campaigning for the vote to abolish one of the Danish opt-out in the EU regarding defense