A network shaping research, policy, and practice
Our affiliates bring together expertise from academia, government, the private sector, and civil society. They maintain full intellectual independence, publish under their own names, and contribute to the Center's program areas.
Dr. Nourah Shuaibi
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Kuwait University. She graduated from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, USA. She is the head of the Women's Research and Studies Center at Kuwait University and is a Board Member for Sheba Youth Foundation for Development in Yemen. Dr. Shuaibi is a nonresident Research Fellow at the Middle East Council on Global Affairs and is a member of the Working Group on Gulf Foreign Policy at Fiker Institute, UAE. Her research interests are in political economy, security studies, counterterrorism and conflict resolution.
Dr. Sarah Almutairi
Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Kuwait University. She earned her Ph.D. from University of California, Santa Cruz.
She has published numerous studies and research articles in peer-reviewed academic journals on issues and topics within the field of Asian Studies, particularly China and Gulf-China relations.
Dr. Hamad Albloshi
Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at Kuwait University. He earned his Ph.D. from The Fletcher School at Tufts University. He has published numerous studies in peer-reviewed academic journals on a range of topics, including internal transformations in Iran and its political thought. He has also written on Kuwaiti-Iranian relations and social movements in Kuwait. His research interests include Iranian affairs and discourse analysis.
Dr. Ahmad Qabazard
Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Kuwait University. He earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from University of Iowa in the United States.
His research interests focus on political behavior in developing countries, with a particular emphasis on Sub-Saharan Africa. In his work, he employs computational methods to analyze public opinion.
Dr. Fatima Alhewail
Assistant Professor of Private International Law at Kuwait University. She earned her PhD from the University of Essex in the United Kingdom. Her academic research interests focus on Kuwaiti Nationality Law and comparative laws, socio-legal studies, law and gender studies, conflict of laws in personal status matters, Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) laws, and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) in FDI. Additionally, she is a researcher in the philosophy of law, the philosophy of life, and practical psychology.
Dr. Fatemah Nawabadin
Assistant Professor of Political Science at Kuwait University. She received her PhD in Political Science from West Virginia University. Her expertise is in Comparative Politics and East Asia. Dr. Fatemah's research interests are on institutional decentralization and its impact on technological advances and innovation in crisis management in countries such as China, Japan, South Korea, and Mongolia.
Research Interests: decentralization, East Asia, statistical methods.
Dr. Khaled Aboudahham
Dr. Khaled Aboudahham is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Kuwait University. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Connecticut, USA. His research interests include critical war studies, militarism, AI, and the epistemic, spatial, and technological logics of security.
Nourah Al-Sulaiman
Nourah Al-Sulaiman is an independent consultant specializing in Human Rights Law, UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs on BHR), and Labour Law and Migration. She holds a master's degree in human Rights Law (with distinction) from SOAS, University of London. Her research interests examine the UNGPs on BHR, South-to-South labour migration corridors, and how socio-cultural contexts shape the translation of international policy obligations into local frameworks across the Global South, with a focus on the MENA region. She has engaged diverse stakeholders across local, regional, and international levels to translate legal analysis and commitments into actionable policy recommendations.
Nouf Almazidi
Nouf Almazidi is a political and economic analyst focused on security reform, gender dynamics, and state-to-people relations in contemporary Kuwait and the wider region. She examines how historical and political-economic structures shape contemporary state governance, security frameworks, and social transformation. She holds an MSc in Empires, Colonialism and Globalisation from the London School of Economics.
Mohammad Al-Mailam
Mohammad Al-Mailam is a political scientist with broad interests in comparative politics, international relations, and quantitative methods. He was recently a Graduate Student Affiliate at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) at Harvard University, a researcher at the Belfer Center, and a founding senior editor of the Harvard Kennedy School Student Policy Review. Before earning his masters at Harvard, Mohammad was a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he conducted research spanning Middle Eastern politics, climate change, and Great Power competition.
Dr. Zainab Ashkanani
Dr. Zainab Ashkanani holds a joint appointment at Texas A&M University, USA, in the Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering and the Energy Institute. She applies causal AI, graph neural networks, and machine learning to the Water-Energy-Food-Health Nexus, with active leadership roles spanning USDA NIFA, OAPEC, the Texas Water Development Board, the U.S. Department of Energy's Genesis Mission, and a five-country NATO Science for Peace and Security consortium.
Her policy work translates these technical frameworks into actionable guidance for governments and international institutions. She has authored a chapter in the NATO Science for Peace and Security Series (Springer) on climate risks, resource scarcity, and human mobility in the Middle East, and has published policy briefs through the Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics, and Public Policy on topics ranging from EU-Mercosur trade dynamics to Arctic geopolitics. She also contributes to the UN International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development through the GIWP-World Bank-UNESCO Water-Economy-Ecology Nexus initiative, and develops risk-assessment tools for crisis response and resource governance across the U.S., EU, and GCC.
She is the founder of SYNERGIA, NEXUS FORGE, GRAT, and DataGlobe AI, operational decision-support platforms shaping resource policy across the U.S., EU, and GCC. Dr. Ashkanani is a member of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the UN Association of the USA, the UNEP Life Cycle Initiative, IEEE, the International Water Resources Association, and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Dr. Mariam Saud Al-Azmi
Dr. Mariam Saud Al-Azmi is a psychological and educational consultant with extensive leadership experience in institutional development, family policy, and social welfare programming. Her career spans senior executive and advisory roles across government and social development institutions, including leadership positions within the Supreme Council for Family Affairs, where she contributed to strategic planning, administrative development, human capital advancement, and the oversight of child protection, shelter, and family care services.
With a strong academic foundation in psychology and applied expertise in women's, family, and mental health issues, Dr. Al-Azmi combines evidence-based insight with practical policy and implementation experience. Her scholarly contributions, including research and psychometric tool development, further strengthen her multidisciplinary profile. Her affiliation with the Kuwait Research and Studies Center reinforces the Center's capacity to generate impactful, policy-relevant research and to advance evidence-driven solutions with meaningful societal outcomes.