CGA Non-Resident Visiting Fellows 2023-2024

RANDI DAVIS, Senior Fellow is currently a Senior Strategic Advisor in the Regional Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean of the United Nations Development Programme.  Her current appointment follows a three year assignment as UNDP Resident Representative for Trinidad and Tobago, Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, based in Port of Spain.

In 2018 and 2019, Ms Davis was recognized by APolitical as one of 100 most influential people in Gender policy around the world for her work as the Director of UNDPs Global Gender Team.  Ms Davis’ has written extensively on issues of gender equality and women’s empowerment and launched global initiatives to empower women in politics, economics and in institutions. Ms. Davis was also a member of the founding team that designed and launched the United Nations Democracy Fund, and she spearheaded UNDP’s global work on Parliamentary Development. 

Ms. Davis holds a Master’s Degree from Columbia University’s  School of International and Public Affairs, a graduate Diploma from L’Institut D’Etudes Politiques in Paris; an undergraduate degree in Economics from York University in Toronto; and a diploma from University of Chicago Booth High Performance Executive Leadership Program. She can be found on Twitter @RandiDavisUNDP

DUBRAVKA SIMONOVIC, Distinguished Fellow has been active in the international women’s human rights, gender equality, and violence against women arena, either as an independent expert or as a diplomat representing Croatia, during the past thirty years. She has taken part in the drafting, negotiations, and/or monitoring of the implementation of several international instruments on women's rights. She was the CEDAW Committee member and its Chairperson, the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women (2015-2021) who initiated the Femicide Watch and the EDVAW Platform. She Co-Chaired the drafting process of the CoE Istanbul Convention on combating violence against women. She was the Chairperson of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW). As a non-resident visiting distinguished fellow at CGA, she will conduct advocacy-related research and write an article on making gender-based violence against women a standing agenda item of the CSW.

BETHANY GORHAM-BRANTLEY, Senior Fellow joined IPI in 2022 as Head of ESG.

Bethany Gorham-Brantley is a sustainability executive and ESG investor with more than a decade of experience driving corporate action and investment strategy on topics related to climate change mitigation and adaptation and ESG integration in portfolio decision making. Bethany is currently Head of ESG for IPI Partners, one of the world’s largest private digital infrastructure investment platforms. Mrs. Gorham-Brantley has published research for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory and has been recognized for her influence as a sustainability thought leader in the technology industry, most recently as a 2022 iMason’s IM100 award recipient.

As a non-resident visiting senior fellow at CGA, her work will focus on navigating the evolving landscape of ESG integration in private equity, and investment strategies that support environmental and social justice and the transition to a low carbon economy. 

Mrs. Gorham-Brantley earned her master’s in environmental management and sustainability from Harvard University and bachelor’s in finance and marketing from Texas Christian University.

CHRISTIANE LEMKE, Senior Fellow is Professor Emerita of Political Science and International Relations at Leibniz University Hannover, where she was also the Director of the Jean Monnet European Center of Excellence. She has been a John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow at Harvard University, Visiting Krupp Chair in the Government Department at Harvard, Max Weber Chair in European Politics at New York University and DAAD-Visiting Adjunct Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was the first woman in Germany to serve as the director of the state parliament in Lower Saxony where she was responsible – among other tasks – for the Europeanization of the parliament’s administration. Professor Lemke is also a media expert on transatlantic security, European affairs, and US politics. Her current research interests focus on transatlantic relations and the salience of climate change policy, the significance of gender in migration and international politics, and the unprecedented security challenges due to the war in Ukraine.

As a non-resident visiting senior fellow Dr. Lemke will mentor CGA graduate students in the above listed fields, support the organization of international panel discussions on global issues, and present her research on European and US approaches to global challenges, such as the climate crisis and the prospects of a new security policy for Europe. Dr. Lemke together with Dr. Maier will also co-author a paper on strategies of resistance by women's and LGBTQ rights activists in EU countries governed by right-wing populist regimes.  This paper will explore how the European Union serves as a catalyst and potentially as a resource for the resistance and norm contestation, and to what extend these activities are organized transnationally.

EBENEZER OBADARE, Senior Fellow, in addition to being a non-resident visiting senior fellow at CGA, is a Douglas Dillon senior fellow for Africa studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Before joining CFR, he was professor of sociology at the University of Kansas, Lawrence. He is also a senior fellow at the New York University School of Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs, as well as a fellow at the University of South Africa’s Institute of Theology. His most recently published book, from the University of Notre Dame Press, is titled Pastoral Power, Clerical State: Pentecostalism, Gender, and Sexuality in Nigeria.

HELIDAH OGUDE-CHAMBERT, Senior Fellow is a scholar and practitioner of Migration and International Development with over 15 years of experience. Working on or in conflict-affected environments, she has dedicated her career to addressing issues related to migration, forced displacement, conflict prevention, social cohesion, and intersectional inclusion. In the broadest sense, her interdisciplinary scholarship uses critical theories, mixed methods, and historical ways of thinking to understand how political elites exploit emotions and discourse to shape news media and state policies in ways that engineer differential premature death.

She is currently a Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford University’s Refugee Studies Centre and will commence her role as Departmental Lecturer in Migration and Development at Oxford's Department of International Development in Fall 2023. She has previously worked for the World Bank, Government of South Africa, and International Crisis Group.

As a non-resident visiting senior fellow at CGA, she will publish a working paper and host related events with Prof. Jens Rudbeck on initiatives proposed at the 2023 Global Refugee Forum and their efficacy in addressing global refugee challenges.

HENDRIK W. OHNESORGE, Distinguished Fellow is Managing Director of the Center for Global Studies and Research Fellow at the Chair in International Relations at the University of Bonn. He holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Münster and a Master’s degree as well as a PhD (summa cum laude) from the University of Bonn. He was Visiting Scholar at UC Berkeley and Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University.

His research centers on power and power shifts in global politics, with a special focus on soft power, U.S. foreign policy and transatlantic relations, as well as charismatic leadership and individual agency in international affairs. His latest books include Soft Power and the Future of U.S. Foreign Policy (2023), Macht und Machtverschiebung: Schlüsselphänomene internationaler Poliik (2022), and Soft Power: The Forces of Attraction in International Relations (2020).

As a non-resident visiting distinguished fellow at CGA, he will work on soft power, both conceptually and empirically, re-examining its origins especially in realist thought and exploring its state and role in U.S. foreign policy today.

LESLIE PALTI GUZMAN, Senior Fellow has 15 years of experience as a commodity market research analyst, political risk adviser, entrepreneur, and energy intelligence reporter. She is the cofounder and CEO of Gas Vista, a market intelligence and predictive analytics provider focused on seaborne commodity trade flows and shipping routes. The company’s predictive maritime platform, Leviaton, is a unique analytical and data solution to anticipate trends in liquefied natural gas (LNG) flows, shipping, and emissions. She is also a New York University SPS Center for Global Affairs non-resident visiting senior fellow and the author of the Energy Vista podcast. Prior to founding Gas Vista, she was the head of Rapidan Energy Group’s Global Gas Service, a non-resident fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, and a senior analyst at Eurasia Group. Ms. Palti-Guzman testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources on challenges and opportunities for oil and gas development in different price environments. Ms. Palti-Guzman has established a strong professional reputation and is regularly asked to appear as a featured speaker at energy events and on television. 

She holds an MA in international affairs from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She also holds both an MA and BA in political science and international affairs from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) in Paris. She is fluent in French and Spanish.

MICHAEL TRAN, Senior Fellow Michael Tran is a Managing Director within the Global Energy Strategy Research team at RBC Capital Markets based in New York. He is responsible for views pertaining to energy markets including macro supply and demand fundamentals. Michael also leads RBC’s Digital Intelligence Strategy research platform, a newly formed data science driven team. The mission of DIS is to leverage alternative data sets to identify the hidden themes in society to unearth actionable investment opportunities spurred by changes in societal behavior and real time global events. Michael has spent nearly 15 years in research, sales and trading and investment banking with major banks like UBS based in London and energy trading platforms like BP based in Calgary.  

Michael's market views are frequently quoted in media outlets and he routinely appears on television networks like Bloomberg, CNBC and BNN. He is a frequent advisor to both the Canadian Federal and Alberta government on issues pertaining to energy policy and budgeting. He serves on the Advisory Board of Orbital Insight, a Silicon Valley based Artificial Intelligence SaaS company where his work lies at the intersection of big energy and big data.  Michael is a non-resident visiting senior fellow at CGA. He also serves on the Board of the New York Energy Forum and on the Business Committee of the US Association of Energy Economists (USAEE). He graduated with distinction from the University of Alberta with a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance and Economics.

As a non-resident visiting senior fellow at CGA, Michael’s work will center around the intersection of big data, big energy and how the financial markets play a key role in global energy security and the energy evolution. Michael is in an excellent position to help CGA support and empower our students to be the energy thought leaders of tomorrow.

ANDRAS VAMOS-GOLDMAN, Senior Fellow is a retired Canadian diplomat, international lawyer and social entrepreneur. He has worked on international political, environmental and law of the sea issues, with a focus since 2000 on international justice. As political coordinator, and later legal adviser of the Canadian Permanent Mission to the United Nations, he worked on the creation of the Sierra Leone Special Court, becoming the founding Chair of its Management Committee. He was also part of the Bureau of the International Criminal Court Preparatory Committee that established the ICC as a functioning judicial institution. More recently, he helped to found and became the Executive-Director of Justice Rapid Response, a hybrid intergovernmental mechanism that has been helping to professionalize the field of international investigations. This achievement led to him becoming an Ashoka Fellow in 2014. He has been teaching international law as an assistant adjunct clinical professor in NYU’s Center for Global Affairs since 2018, and he has also been a visiting senior fellow there since 2019. He recently joined the Board of Diplomats Without Borders. 

As a non-resident visiting senior fellow at CGA, his work will contribute to reinforcing a rules based international system by, inter alia, fostering the debate to ensure that accountability for recent crimes of aggression is credible; and that the art of diplomacy is returned to the conflict-resolution and prevention tool-kits of the international community.