







Laura Nuño Gómez
Laura Nuño Gómez is a tenured Professor of Political Sciences at Constitutional Law Department at URJC. She is the Director of URJC Gender Equality Observatory and of the Degree in Gender Equality and of the Chair of Gender Studies at the Public Law Institute. She is also a member of the Commission of the Interuniversity PHD in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, of the Board of the Diploma in Gender Equality Policies, and the Council of State for Women’s Participation. She is author of wide array of books and articles on gender inequalities in labour, violence against women and women’s body mercantilization. She is the lead researcher of MAP-FGM/C project.

Sonia Nuñez Puente
Sonia Núñez Puente is tenured professor of Gender and Communication at the Department of Sciences of Communication of URJC. She is currently the Director if the Gender Equality Unit emboddied in the Gender Equality Observatory. She is also the Director of the Master Degree om Communciation, Culture and Digital Citizenship. She has lead several competitve research projects in the field of Gender and Communication and published articles in national and international reviews, specially about gender based violence and digital feminist activism.

Julia Ropero Carrasco
Julia Ropero Carrasco Tenured Professor of Penal Law at URJC. She is author of 3 monograhic books, collaborations in collective books, and publications in national and international journals on her main aireas of research: multiculturalism and Penal Law, organized crime and sexual exploitation, international legal harmonization and judiciary cooperation, environment as a juridic asset, protection of sexual integrity of children and female genital mutilation. She has taken part in several research projects with special focus on protection of women and children.

Ana De Miguel
Ana De Miguel is Tenured Professor in the area of Moral Phisolohpy and Polititics. She is the Director of the PHD in Gender Studies at URJC and of the Diploma in History of Feminist Theory at Universidad Complutense de Madrid (26th edition). She has lead several research projects and published books and articles on feminist theory. She is currently researching on feminism as social movement and new theoretical frameworks of interpretation. Among her recent publications: Neoliberalismo sexual. El mito de la libre elección, Teoría Feminista. De la Ilustración a la Globalización, The Feminist Movement and Redefinition of Reality (2005).

Magaly Thill
Magaly Thill is honorary lecturer of URJC and project manager of MAP-FGM project. She holds Master Degrees in International Development (UCM), Human Rights (UNED) and Interdisciplinary Gender Studies (URJC). For many years, she has worked in non-governmental sector and as gender expert for several public and private institutions, including UNWomen, Spanish Cooperation Agency, Ministries and Universities. Her principal areas of research are: gender based violence, EU policies for gender equality, women’s rights at international level and feminism and women’s rights activism, with special focus on “Arabic” countries.

Lidia Fernández
Lidia Fdez. Montes is working at the Gender Equality Observatory (URJC). She holds a Degree in Political Sciences and Master Degrees in Communication Management in Public Institutions and Opinion Studies (URJC) and Interdisciplinaries Gender Studies (URJC). She has been working as Communication Director in a political organization for fifteen years. She is currently PhD candidate. Her main area of research is focus on youth, gender based violence and ICT.

Rut Bermejo
Rut Bermejo is Senior Lecturer in Politics and Public Administration. She is the Director of the PHD in Criminal Profiling at URJC. She has participated in several research national and European projects on justice and home affairs policies, particularly migration, border management and fight against violent radicalisation. She has published articles on migration policies in Spain and Europe and border management in Europe. She is currently researching on radicalisation into violence, refugees and border management from the public policies perspective. Previously, she has been research fellow at Notingham University and researcher at the Elcano think tank


Clara Carvalho
Clara Carvalho is professor at the Department of Anthropology of the ISCTE-IUL, Lisbon, and president of the Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies (AEGIS). Previously, she was chair of the Centre of International Studies, formerly Centre for African Studies (2007-2016), and invited Professor at the Université de Lille (2002-2003) and Brown University (2004). She has conducted extensive fieldwork in Western Africa, particularly about traditional authorities and local power in Guinea-Bissau from 1992 till 1997.She is currently conducting research on gender and global health issues. She has experience as international evaluator and advisor.

Ricardo Falcão
Ricardo Falcão is a researcher in Center of International Studies in ISCTE-IUL. He holds a PhD in African Studies granted by ISCTE-IUL in the year 2016. His initial formation is in Social and Cultural Anthropology. and and has, since 2007, been researching on Senegal. In 2009 he directed an independent research documentary entitled Waalo Waalo. His research has focused such areas as development, resource management, access to land, social history, migration, ICTs, youth, gender, intergenerational relations, social values and representations, and gender-based violence, violence against women, female genital mutilation and human rights.

Carla Moleiro
Carla Moleiro is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social and Human Sciences of ISCTE-IUL. She obtained her PhD in Clinical Psychology at the Univ. California, USA, 2003. She has training as a psychotherapist at the APTCC. Her current interests are on clinical work with clients of migrant backgrounds, and from ethnic, religious and sexual minorities(i.e. LGBT). She works on Mental Health, Diversity and Multiculturalism, as well as clinical individual and cultural diversity competences. She is the president of the Portuguese Association of Transcultural Psychology and Psychiatry, a member of the Task Force of EFPA on Cultural and Ethnic Diversity., and the director of the CIS-IUL research centre.

Marta Patricio
Marta Patrício holds a degree in Political Science and International Relations (2007) by Universidade Nova de Lisboa and a Master in African Studies (2010) by ISCTE-IUL. Between 2010 and 2012 she was research assistant at ISCTE-IUL in the project “Identities and Borders in Africa”. She is also a member of ABORNE (African Borderlands Research Network) and in 2012 she was Exchange Visiting Student at the Centre of African Studies – University of Edinburgh. In the past four years she has developed research for her PhD in African Studies at ISCTE-IUL (“The dynamics of legal pluralism in Mozambique: case study of Mossurize district”).

Cristina Santinho
Cristina Santinho is an anthropologist with a PhD granted by ISCTE-IUL for her work on refugees in Portugal. She is also a member of the Board of CRIA (Centro em Rede de Investigação em Antropologia). Her areas of expertise have been developed around migrations, refugees, health and human rights. She has created and participated in national and international projects on these areas, both as researcher and coordinator. She also teaches and coordinates a human rights and refugees speciality course; and supervises several Master and PhD students working on migrant populations health issues, refugees and women refugees in Portugal.


Adriana Kaplan
Adriana Kaplan is a medical anthropologist, Professor of the Dpt. of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the UAB, Director of Wassu Foundation, Director of the Chair of Knowledge Transfer and Principal Investigator of the research group IRGPS/HTP. She has done ethnographic research in The Gambia, Senegal and Guinea Bissau focused on migratory movements and FGM/C. She has been research collaborator in the Medical Research Council of The Gambia, advisor of the Women’s Bureau and consultant for international agencies (UNFPA, UNDP, Unicef, UE). In Spain collaborates and assesses Institutions to plan and implement programmes for the attention and prevention of FGM/C at a local, regional and country level. She is member of the Experts Committee about FGM/C in the WHO.

Marie-Alix Le Charles
Marie-Alix Le Charles is an economist with a Master degree in Economics of Planning Local Development and a Master in International Financial Market. Her career has been heavily focused on project management in international cooperation for development . After years dedicating to financial inclusion in developing countries, she started woking at Wassu Gambia Kafo in 2011, to manage its program for the Prevention and Management of FGM/C in The Gambia. Since October 2013, she is in charge of accountability, economic reporting and strategic counselling for Wassu Foundation.

Nora Salas Seoane
Nora Salas Seoane is a Psychologist and holds a Master’s Degree on the Anthropology of Childhood and Youth at Brunel University (UK). She has worked as a Psychologist with early year’s children and families since 2007. She has carried out research on youth and music in Equatorial Guinea and on mixed youth and social cohesion in Catalonia (Spain). Currently, she is Coordinator of Wassu-UAB Foundation, managing projects for the prevention of Female Genital Mutilation. She also coordinates the IRGPS/HTP of the Department of Social Anthropology at UAB.

Neus Aliaga Figueras
Neus Aliaga Figueras is a Social and Cultural Anthropologist with a Master degree in Education at UAB. In 2015, she did her internship of Anthropology in Wassu Foundation, where she gained an in-depth knowledge on FGM/C. At the end of 2015, she joined the Wassu team as a fellow-student and became member of the IRGPS/HTP (UAB). Since 2016 she is in charge to give support to the research projects and assistance to the Coordinator of the Foundation.


Maya Pellicciari
Anthropologist, senior researcher and trainer. Phd in “Methodologies of Etno-anthropological research”. Field of activity: medical anthropology. Member of FC Board. Member of SIAM Board (Italian Society for Medical Anthropology”) and Editorial Board of AM. Rivista italiana della Società di antropologia medica (Italian Journal of SIAM). Co-Coordinator of “Umbrian Center for the Study and Prevention of FGM”. Current main working areas: FGM, gender and body practices, health rights and migration, doctor/patient relationship, education policies and learning difficulties.

Sabrina Flamini
Anthropologist, senior researcher and trainer. Phd in “Health Promotion”. Field of activity: public health, medical anthropology. Member of FC Board. Member of SIAM (Italian Society for Medical Anthropology”) and Editorial Board of Sistema Salute (Italian Journal of Health Promotion). Co-Coordinator of “Umbrian Center for the Study and Prevention of FGM”. Current main working areas: FGM, gender and body practices, mental health and political aspects, education policies and learning difficulties.

Carlotta Bagaglia
Anthropologist, senior researcher. Phd in “Methodologies of Etno-anthropological research”. Field of activity: medical anthropology. Member of SIAM Board (Italian Society for Medical Anthropology”). Team member of “Umbrian Center for the Study and Prevention of FGM”. Current main working areas: FGM, users needs analysis and access to public health services (in particular in the emergency area), facilitation of workshops and mediation activities in the field of social care.


Els Leye
Els Leye holds a master’s degree in Social and Cultural Welfare Studies and obtained her PhD in Comparative Sciences of Culture at the Ghent University in 2008, on the topic of female genital mutilation in Europe. She is currently assistant professor in Global Health/Gender Related Practices at the faculty of medicine at Ghent University and is postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Gender, Diversity and Intersectionality at the Free University in Brussels. Her focus of research is mainly on harmful cultural practices (female genital mutilation, forced marriages, honour related violence) and gender based violence in general.

Gily Coene
Gily Coene is Director of RHEA, co-founder and VUB-program-director of the Interuniversity Master in Gender and Diversity. She obtained her PhD in Moral Sciences at Ghent University in 2004. Since 2006, she was appointed at the Chair of Humanist Studies at the Department of Philosophy and Moral Sciences of VUB. She is also affiliated with the Department of Political Sciences and with the Centre of Ethics and Humanism at the VUB. Her research is mainly located at the intersections of descriptive and normative ethics, feminist theory and gender studies and covers a wide range of issues related to gender, cultural diversity and ethnicity globalization,etc.


Michela Fusaschi
Michela Fusaschi is Associate professor and teaches Cultural and Political Anthropology in the Department of Political Sciences, Roma3 University and in its Phd School on Gender Studies. Since two decades she makes research on the issue of the cultural modifications of the body. Particularly engaging in the Italian and European context, she became one of the main authors for the anthropology of the so-called FGM/C practices, proposing an interpretative approach based on the concepts of bio-politics and moral economy. Her principal fields are Rwanda, Mali and Italy. She has received several awards for her contributions on gender and anthropological studies

Giovanna Cavatorta
Giovanna Cavatorta holds a Phd in Cultural Anthropology from EHESS – Paris and in Social Sciences from the University of Padua. After having defended the thesis on return migration to Senegal, in which she proposed a critical discussion of transnationalism, in 2015 she started a fieldwork in Djibouti on the abandonment of the so-called FGM/C practices. Member of Laboratoire IRIS (EHESS-Paris) at present she is post-doc researcher at the Department of Political Sciences, Roma3 University. Her main research fields are Italy, France, West Africa and Djibouti and her research matters are migration, governamentalities and sex/gender/generation systems.

Valentina Vitale
Valentina Vitale holds a PHD in Cultural and Social Anthropology from Roma Tre University. After having defended a thesis in 2014 on transnational female migration from East Europe to Italy, in 2015 she attended a Master Executive in Eu Project Management at La Sapienza University. Member of “Osservatorio sul Razzismo e le Diversità M. G. Favara” and expert on the subject (M-DEA/01. Professor Michela Fusaschi) in Roma Tre University, at present she is post-doc researcher at the Department of Political Sciences (Roma Tre). Her main research fields are female migration, gender anthropology, female genital modifications, female associations.

Francesco Pompeo
Francesco Pompeo is Associate Professor and teaches Social and Cultural Anthropology in the Department of Sciences of Education, Roma3 University and in its Phd School. He is the coordinator of the “Osservatorio sul razzismo e le diversità M. G. Favara” of this University. He has been Directeur d’études associé, Anthropologie et historicité, at the École des Hautes Études en sciences sociales (Paris) and co-founder of the Maestria en Antropologia in the University of L’Avana. Since several years he works, with a critical anthropological approach, on the matters of identity, migration and social conflicts, doing research mainly in Italy, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean.

Cecilia Gallotti
Cecilia Gallotti is Senior Researcher for “Health and Welfare” Unit at ISMU Foundation and Director of Psycho-Sociodrama at the Centro Studi di Psicodramma e Metodi Attivi in Milan. She taught Cultural Anthropology in several universities and schools of psychotherapy. Project leader, expert in intercultural competences and certified trainer in the social-health and education public system. Author of essays on anthropology of health and gender, migration and intercultural relations. Since 2007 she has worked on FGM/C, through research, several national and international projects, training health and social workers, a dedic