Board and Council

The Board has the overall responsibility for the Nansen Center for Peace and Dialogue, its finances, strategy and operations. There is also an advisory Council that elects the members of the Board and provides professional guidance and input on issues of importance for strategic development.

Board

Øyvind Svendsen

Øyvind Svendsen is the chair of the board. He holds a doctorate in political science from the University of Copenhagen and is a senior researcher at the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Policy (NUPI). Svendsen has a master's degree from the London School of Economics. His research focus is mainly on international order, security and defense policy, Norwegian foreign policy, and the European Union. He received his bachelor's degree from Innlandet University College and has taught foreign policy, peace and conflict studies, as well as other topics.

Stig Hoseth

Stig Hoseth is the deputy chair of the board. In his professional life he is the department director of the Norwegian Forest Museum (the Anno Museum). Under his leadership, the museum has worked with «Dialogue in Nature and Environmental Management» with a focus on issues related to wolves, hydropower, and wind power, partly in collaboration with the Nansen Center for Peace and Dialogue. Stig is a trained landscape architect, is a former chief municipal executive, and has extensive experience with various studies, user participation issues and political decision-making processes.

Laila Bokhari

Laila Bokhari, member of the board, has a background as a researcher, diplomat and politician. She has researched terrorism and radicalization at the Norwegian Defense Research Institute and at the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Policy, with a special focus on the Middle East, Europe, South and Central Asia. She is an author and lecturer, and was a member of the July 22 Commission. Bokhari is a former Norwegian undersecretary, and has worked with the United Nations, with the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, and with NATO. Her educational background is from, among other institutions, the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Hilde Ekberg

Hilde Ekeberg, member of the board, holds a bachelor's degree in cultural and awareness studies and is pursuing her master's degree in cultural studies. She is a consultant at the Norwegian Craft Institute in Lillehammer, a former general secretary of Youth For Understanding and a former assistant secretary general of the National Council of Norway's Children and Youth Organizations. She has been an advisor to the aid organization FORUT (For Development) and a board member of FOKUS (Forum for Women and Development Issues). Ekeberg has held several political positions and is a former parliamentary candidate for Norway’s Christian Democratic Party.

Ingrid Bergemillom

Ingrid Bergemillom, alternate member of the board, is an advisor to Young Entrepreneurship, Innlandet county. She holds two master's degrees: One in conflict resolution from the University of Gothenburg and one in Islam and Middle Eastern studies from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. Bergemillom studied and worked for three years in Israel and Palestine, including as a human rights observer on the West Bank. After her stay in the Middle East, she worked to promote the role of businesses in building peaceful and robust societies through the Business for Peace Foundation.

Peder Østebø

Peder Østebø, alternate member of the Board, is an advisor at NOREF, Norwegian Centre for Conflict Resolution. He holds a master degree in political science from the University of Oslo and has an MA in Global History from Freie Univärsitet Berlin and Humbolt Univärsitet zu Berlin. Østebø previously served as a political advisor for the Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget) and has worked as a research assistant at the Norwegian Institute of Foreign Policy (NUPI), focusing on Latin Amerika, where he also lived for several years.

Council

Mina Gerhardsen

Mina Gerhardsen, chair of the council, is a trained social geographer and educator. She has experience in media, politics and volunteer organizations, and now works as Secretary General of the National Association for Public Health. Gerhardsen is from Oslo.

Lene Espelund

Lene Espelund, deputy chair of the council, is a secondary school social sciences lecturer with a master's degree in conflict and human rights. Lene works as an adviser to the Innlandet police district, and previously was a teacher of international relations at the Labor Movement's folk high school. She has experience with organizational work in Norway and abroad, including Norwegian Church Aid and Doctors without Borders.

Lavleen Kaur

Lavleen Kaur is a social scientist, actor, stage artist and artistic director of «The Diverse Stage». Lavleen has a master's degree in criminology from the University of Oslo and a five-year degree in classical Indian dance from London. Lavleen has been a doctoral fellow at the CULCOM project and at the Oslo Law School. She has researched social control, integration, racism, forced marriage, war conflicts and war traumas, and has seen how these issues affect attitudes and views of «the others» across generations.

Ibrahim Afridi

Ibrahim Afridi holds a master's degree in international relations from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Ibrahim has collaborated with the Nansen Center on several occasions, and has participated in the Nansen Center for Peace and Dialogue’s training program in dialogue facilitation

Benedicte Bull

Benedicte Bull is a professor of political science at the Center for Development and the Environment (SUM) at the University of Oslo. Benedicte Bull has led the Norwegian Network for Latin American Research (NorLARNet) since 2008, and has also led the Oslo Academy of Global Governance since 2012. She chairs the board of the Nordic Center for Latin American Studies (NILAS). She has researched topics related to development issues, the environment, institutions and elites in Latin America, and in international development organizations.

Arne Strand

Arne Strand holds a doctoral degree in Post-war Recovery Studies from the University of York, and is the director of the U4 Anti-corruption Resource Center at Chr. Michelsen's Institute (CMI). Arne Strand has previously headed Norwegian NGOs in Afghanistan and the Cyprus office of PRIO (Peace Research Institute Oslo).

Birgit Engsæter Madslien

Birgit Engesæter Madslien holds a graduate degree in engineering from the Norwegian University of Technology (now NTNU), and has worked as a science teacher at Lillehammer High School for 34 years. Birgit Engesæter Madslien has experience from the NORDEM emergency preparedness group, the Center for Human Rights since 1997, and has had assignments in the Balkans, in Africa and Asia, plus most recently in Ukraine in the spring of 2019.