Moritz Ehrmann (MA)
Director
Moritz Ehrmann is the Director of the ASPR. He brings to the ASPR his extensive experience from varied contexts, including Iraq, Colombia, Jordan, Ukraine, and Yemen, and through his previous work with the International Committee of the Red Cross and as an Austrian diplomat. He began his career with the Austrian foreign service, for which he was most recently deployed to the Austrian OSCE Chairmanship Task Force from 2016 to 2017. Since 2018, he has been engaged in informal international peace mediation.
Lukas Wank
Deputy Director
Lukas Wank is the ASPR's Deputy Director and in this capacity is responsible, among other things, for the ASPR's cooperation portfolio with the Austrian Ministry of Defence as well as other individual projects. His background is in peace research and conflict analysis, security policy and the military, development corporation and humanitarian aid.
Jan Pospisil
Head of Research Programme
Jan Pospisil isResearch Director at the ASPR and an Associated Professor in Political Science at the University of Vienna. His work focuses on peace processes and political settlements, donor politics in peacebuilding, resilience, and South Sudanese and Sudanese politics. He has headed the workstream on local peace agreements in the Political Settlements Research Programme (PSRP) at the University of Edinburgh, which is funded by UK FCDO, and will co-manage a six-year follow-up programme called Peace and Conflict Resolution Evidence Platform (PeaceRep). He is the author of ‘Peace in Political Unsettlement’, published by Palgrave Macmillan. His most recent monograph on South Sudan as a fragment state has just been published in German by transcript.
Mohammad Mahmoud Farghal
Mohammad Mahmoud Farghal is the Project Manager for ASPR’s Iraq activities focused on mediation and the promotion of dialogue between political actors in the country. He has extensive experience in political, international and humanitarian affairs, having served with the League of Arab States, the United Nations, the Government of Egypt, and the International Committee of the Red Cross. He holds a degree in Political Science from the University of Ottawa.
Eva Huber
Eva Huber leads the ASPR´s peacebuilding projects in South Sudan and Sudan. She has a background in political science, African studies, and public international law and more than 10 years of experience working for UN peace operations and agencies as well as NGOs. She has supported peace processes through political liaison, strategic planning, capacity-building, community engagement, and programme coordination and is an expert on the peace process in Colombia.
Augustin Nicolescou
Augustin Nicolescou is Project Manager for the Holy Land Project and serves as co-director of the Herbert C Kelman Institute for Interactive Conflict Transformation, a partner of the ASPR. He also contributes to the ASPR’s research and training activities, with thematic expertise in conflict transformation, dialogue processes, the HDP Nexus, conflict sensitivity and Do-No-Harm and geographic experience in Israel, Palestine, Sri Lanka, Central Asia, and the South Caucasus.
Wolfgang Weilharter
Wolfgang Weilharter is the Project Manager for the project "Communal Peace and Conflict Work in Burgenland". His focus is on the implementation of mediation and dialogue processes on the communal level, in the areas of communal politics, housing and neighbourhoods and local coexistence of people of different origins.
Monika Psenner
Head of Training & Education
Monika Psenner is the Head of Capacity Development at ASPR. She also coordinates the centre’s EU training portfolio including the EU Civilian Training Initiative (EUCTi), the EU Police and Civilian Services Training (EUPCST) and EU Aid Volunteers programme. Monika represents ASPR in the European Civilian Training Group (EUCTG). Her professional background is in development cooperation and humanitarian aid from an NGO perspective. She has many years of experience in training, project, and process development.
Susanne J. Györög
Susanne J. Györög is the Project Manager of the integrated training courses within the European Security and Defence College (ESDC). Her specializations include humanitarian aid, post-conflict recovery, security sector reform, protection of civilians and civil-military coordination in complex emergencies as well as peace missions.
Rebecca Trixa
Rebecca Trixa is Project Officer of the two projects „Capacity Building for Humanitarian Aid in West Africa" (HAWA IV) and "International Civilian Peacebuilding Training Programme" (IPT). Her professional background consists of experience in the fields of development cooperation, peace and conflict research as well as educational work. In this context, she can pool the perspectives of different levels of governmental organizations, NGOs likewise the private sector.
![[Translate to Englisch:] Elisabeth Horvath](/fileadmin/Pictures/Ueber_uns/Team/elisabeth_horvath.jpg)
![[Translate to Englisch:] Elke Marksteiner](/fileadmin/Pictures/Ueber_uns/Team/elke_marksteiner.jpg)
Raluca Csernatoni
Raluca Csernatoni is an Associate Research Expert at the ASPR with a focus on Peace Tech. She is a Fellow at Carnegie Europe, where she specializes on European security and defence, with a specific focus on emerging disruptive technologies. Csernatoni is also a Team Leader on new technologies for the EU Cyber Direct - EU Cyber Diplomacy Initiative project. She is currently a Guest Professor at the Centre for Security, Diplomacy and Strategy of Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB) in Belgium, her research exploring topics at the intersection of International Relations and Science and Technology Studies. Csernatoni is also a Lecturer on technology, security, and high-tech warfare with the Department of International Relations of Central European University (CEU) in Vienna, Austria.
Olivia Lazard
Olivia Lazard is dedicated to environmental peacemaking as a mediator and is an advisor at the ASPR. She is a fellow at Carnegie Europe. Her research focuses on the geopolitics of climate, the transition ushered by climate change, and the risks of conflict and fragility associated to climate change and environmental collapse.
Tamra Pearson d’Estrée
Tamra Pearson d’Estrée is a professor of conflict resolution at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver, Colorado, USA, and directs the university’s Conflict Engagement & Resolution Initiative. Dr. d’Estrée’s research focuses on social psychological dimensions of intergroup conflict, negotiation and resolution, particularly on identity dynamics, framing, and conflict resolution capacity in processes of escalation and resolution. Her work on peacebuilding processes combines research with professional practice in divided societies and communities. She also studies the use of evaluation for the improvement of international, environmental and policy conflict resolution.
Wilfried Graf
Wilfried Graf (Dr.phil.) is co-founder and co-director of the Herbert C. Kelman Institute for Interactive Conflict Transformation, with which the ASPR cooperates in the field of conflict transformation. His areas of expertise include conflict transformation and the facilitation of peace processes with a focus on complexity theory, critical realism, basic needs theories and socio-psychological aspects of peace and conflict. As a scholar-practitioner, he is particularly concerned with the transfer of theoretical insights into practice.
Wolfgang Hofkirchner
Wolfgang Hofkirchner is retired professor of Technology Assessment at the Vienna University of Technology. His research aims at the transformation of societies into a Global Sustainable Information Society. His approach is transdisciplinary. He edited the first volume of Edgar Morin’s Method in German.
