THE TEAM

Elias is Professor of Economics at the London Business School (London, United Kingdom) and a research affiliate of the CEPR (Centre for Economic Policy Research). He holds an LL.B. from the law school of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, a Master's in Public Policy and Administration (MPA) with a concentration in international economics from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. in economics from the London Business School.

After the completion of his doctorate in 2005 he worked for two years at the Financial Research Division of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt, Germany. From 2007 till 2012 he served as Assistant Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College (NH, USA), while during the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 academic years he was a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Economics Department of Harvard University (MA, USA).

His research interests cover the areas of international finance, political economy, applied econometrics, law and finance, and growth and development. He has published in many leading peer-refereed journals, such as Econometrica, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Political Economy, the American Economic Review, Journal of Finance, the Economic Journal, the Review of Economics and Statistics, the Journal of Development Economics, the Journal of the European Economic Association, the Journal of International Economics, and more. His work has also appeared in edited book volumes.

His research has been recognised with the inaugural 2013 European Investment Bank Young Economist Award, 2005 Young Economist Award by the European Economic Association and the 2008 Austin Robinson memorial prize by the Royal Economic Association. In 2017 Elias was awarded with a European Research Consolidator Grant.

Stelios is an Associate Professor of Economics at Brown University, a Research Associate at the NBER and a Research Affiliate of the CEPR. A native of Argos, Greece, Stelios holds a B.A. from the Athens University of Economics and Business and a Ph.D. in Economics from Brown University. After completing his doctorate in 2008, he joined the Department of Economics at Tufts University as an Assistant Professor. In 2010-2011 he was the Deutsche Bank Member at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and he has been a visiting professor at Harvard Business School and INSEAD.

His primary research interests intersect with political economy, growth and development, and the economics of culture. He has published in leading peer-reviewed economic journals including the American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy and the Quarterly Journal of Economics.

Giorgio Chiovelli is Research Fellow at the Department of Economics at the London Business School (London, United Kingdom). He holds a BA.s in International Relationship from the University of Bologna (Bologna, Italy), a MSc. in Economics and Finance from the Barcelona Graduate School of Economics (Barcelona, Spain), and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Bologna. He was a Visiting Doctoral Student at Brown University (Providence, US) in 2014.

His research focuses on the areas development economics, political economy and economic growth. He is interested on the empirical analysis of the political economy of development in developing countries, combining theory-based applications with spatial econometrics tools and GIS. His research has been published on the Journal of the European Economic Association.

Aderito Ismael is an expert of humanitarian demining. Since 1991, he has worked for Save the Children UK and Field Officer for UNHCR. He started working in mine action with Halo Trust. From 1999 to 2015 he managed the largest and longest demining project of Humanity & Inclusion Federation around the Globe.

He then engaged with AFRICOM (African Command of US Army) to train Mozambican Police agents on Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) techniques. In 2013, he founded commercial company on demining to face residual mines or unexploded ordnance in Mozambique. He also leads a Civil Society initiative on Landmine Victims Assistance.

Aderito holds a Master on “Projects & Human Resources Management”, an EOD-2, Physical Security and Stocks Management, Senior Technical Advisor for UN on Mine action, and Accounting. He has also conducted some Consultancy work in Angola and Kosovo. From March 2016 he is in charge of the Humanity & Inclusion demining capacity in Colombia.

Suzana Moreira is the founder of technology company Mowoza, which delivers innovative technology solutions to micro and small businesses in Sub Saharan Africa. In 2017, she was invited to work on solutions to address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) at the UNLEASH Laboratory in Denmark. Suzana is firmly committed to creating scalable solutions that bring about social, political and economic change.

With Mowoza, Suzana is developing a blockchain enabled platform to assist informal micro and small traders, inclusive of informal cross-border traders with their trading activities and business growth in Southern Africa. She has delivered consulting projects to Legatum Institute (MIT), DFID, World Bank (Washington, DC) amongst others on the barriers facing informal traders and on informal cross-border trade.

Suzana was selected as a SLUSH GIA winner in 2017, the Mail and Guardian's Drivers of Change Business Footprint Award Winner in 2016 and is a Harambe Enterprise Alliance (HEA) ’12 Associate. Suzana graduated in 2008 with a MBA from the Imperial College London after which she worked on Cross Rail in London. Prior to founding Mowoza, Suzana Moreira worked on high profile mega infrastructure projects.

She has been a mentor to a number of infrastructure professionals on selected NEPAD PIDA Corridor Transportation projects in Sub Saharan Africa through the Infrastructure for Skills Development (IS4D) programme. She has undertaken executive studies on entrepreneurship and innovation with Cambridge University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Dr Panagiotis Kosmas received the Diploma in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the National Technical University of Athens, Greece, in 1999, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from Northeastern University, Boston, MA, in 2002 and 2005, respectively.

He joined King’s College London (KCL) as a Lecturer in 2008, and is currently a Senior Lecturer at KCL’s Department of Informatics. Prior to his appointment at KCL, he held research positions at the Center for Subsurface Sensing and Imaging Systems, Boston, USA, the University of Loughborough, UK, and the Computational Electromagnetics Group, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA.

He is also a co-founder of Mediwise Ltd, an award-winning UK-based SME focusing on the use of electromagnetic waves for medical applications.

His research interests include radio frequency (RF) engineering with application to sensing and imaging, antenna design, physics-based detection methods, and inverse problems theory and techniques.

He is currently principal investigator and project manager in relevant projects of total value over £4M, which are funded by Innovate UK and UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). He has contributed a book chapter and over 90 journal and conference publications, and he has organised and delivered various short courses, special sessions, and workshops in these areas.

Jamie Barras is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Informatics at King’s. He has over 20 years’ experience of research and development in radiofrequency-spectroscopic sensing, latterly leading the Quadrupole Resonance Sensors team (QUEST) within Informatics, with a focus on creating technologies in support of humanitarian action and peacebuilding.

Alberto da Cruz is Country Officer at the International Growth Center (IGC) in Maputo. He received his degree in Political Sciences from the Universidade Eduardo Mondlane (UEM). During his studies he worked as a research assistant at UEM and other universities such as Oxford and Tufts University. After that, he worked as Country-Fellow at IGC and Co-Executive Director at AgnBioenergia. In addition, he is a political commentator, appearing on talk shows as a political analyst.

Jorrit is a Country Economist at the IGC in Mozambique. Before joining the IGC, he worked as an Overseas Development Institute Fellow at the Ministry of Agriculture in Mozambique. Jorrit holds an MSc in Development Economics from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and his research interests include industrial policy, political economy and agricultural development.