List of Expert Advisors – 2nd Interregional EU-ASEAN Perspectives Dialogue

Prof. Dr. Tanja A. Börzel (general advisor)

Tanja A. Börzel holds the chair for European Integration at the Freie Universität Berlin. She received her PhD from the European University Institute in Florence, Italy in 1999. From 1999 to 2004, she conducted her research and taught at the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods in Bonn, the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the University Heidelberg. Her research focus and teaching experience lie in the field of institutional theory and Governance, European Integration, and Comparative Politics with a focus on Western and Southern Europe. She mainly concentrates on questions of institutional change as a result of Europeanization as well as on the diffusion of European ideas and policies within and outside of the EU. Since 2009 she has been leading the Kolleg-Forschergruppe (KFG) “The Transformative Power of Europe” together with Prof. Dr. Thomas Risse and she is project coordinator of the FP-7 research project “Maximizing the Enlargement Capacity of the European Union”.

Dr. Laura Allison (general advisor)

Laura Allison is a Research Fellow in the Public Policy and Global Affairs Programme at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. She received her PhD in Comparative Politics and International Relations from the University of Melbourne, Australia. She also holds a Master of International Relations from the University of Queensland, Australia. Her research interests include comparative regional integration and EU-ASEAN relations. In her current position she is involved in the research project Federalism in Asia, investigating and conceptualising federal governance in countries throughout Asia. Her forthcoming book is entitled The EU, ASEAN and Interregionalism: Regionalism Support and Norm Diffusion between the EU and ASEAN.

Mikael Ekman (general advisor)

Employed at the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs since 2008, Mikael Ekman has worked as a diplomat in Jakarta, Brussels and Copenhagen. His main focus areas have been South East Asia and the European Union, respectively, with emphasis on the political and commercial opportunities and challenges that a shifting world order brings for Danish/EU cooperation with Asia. Currently serving as Deputy Head of Mission at the Danish Embassy in Jakarta, Mikael is covering developments in Indonesia and the ASEAN region up-close. The Embassy is also accredited as the official Danish representation to ASEAN. Mikael holds a Master degree in Political Science (International Relations) from Aarhus University in Denmark.

Moe Thuzar (Development)

Moe Thuzar is Lead Researcher (socio-cultural) at the ASEAN Studies Centre at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS), Singapore. Starting July 2012, she was appointed an ISEAS Fellow and is also a member of the ISEAS’ Myanmar Studies Programme. Moe coordinated the programme from July 2012 to October 2013. Before Moe joined the ASC in May 2008 she headed the ASEAN Secretariat’s Human Development Unit, which coordinated ASEAN cooperation in labour, youth, social welfare, education, women’s affairs, poverty reduction and rural development, health, and civil service matters. Moe is also a resident analyst for Channel News Asia’s Think Tank programme. She is working on a review of Myanmar’s foreign policy, focusing on the post-1988 period. Her research interests cover urbanisation and environmental cooperation in ASEAN, ASEAN integration issues, and ASEAN’s dialogue relations. Moe was a Temasek scholar for the Master in Public Policy Programme at the National University of Singapore.

Raul Cordenillo (Trade)

Raul Cordenillo has a unique combination of competencies and skills drawn from several years of national and international experience. Among his various roles are Development Project Manager, International Relations Professional, Resource Mobiliser, Trade & Investment Negotiator, Policy Advocate, Political Economy Analyst and Academic. Raul is currently the Head of Inter-Regional Dialogue, Partnerships and Advocacy at International IDEA in Stockholm, Sweden. In this capacity, he also heads the Inter-Regional Democracy Resource Centre, the full-time Secretariat of the Inter-Regional Dialogue on Democracy. He is also a Joint Doctoral Candidate in Social Sciences at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and Universiteit Antwerpen and his research is on the Political Economy of the EU Anti-Dumping Policy and its Application to Asian Firms, such as those from China.

Dr. Lena Rethel (Finance)

Lena Rethel joined the Department of Politics and International Studies (PAIS) at the University of Warwick in August 2011 and is now Associate Professor of International Political Economy. Her research interests are concentrated in the broad areas of the political economy of finance and Southeast Asian politics. Conceptually, this includes the relationship between finance and development, financialisation and the politics of debt, alternative globalisations and the disciplinary parameters and spatial location of contemporary IPE, to name just a few. Substantively, her work so far has concentrated on both the theories and common senses that underpin financial policymaking, the question of how this leads to institutional change (in particular the expansion of capital markets) and the socio-economic implications of these changes. She has focused on developments in the Southeast Asia region. Currently, she is working on a range of projects that explore the relationship between financial system change and development, trajectories of emerging market debt and the emergence of Islamic finance.

Dr. Martin Wattenbach (Climate change)

Martin Wattenbach is a senior researcher in the hydrology section at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences since 2011 and the coordinator for ClimateKiC projects in the institute since 2014. He has an international reputation as ecosystem modeller with a focus on carbon water cycle interaction, which he developed during numerous European funded research projects. At GFZ he is currently active in projects focussing at the interaction of urban systems and agriculture (e.g. MFC4CLIMAG, CFT space, LoCal). Inside ClimateKiC he is one of the core team members of the greenhouse gas platform, working in an international team on new innovative systems to monitor report and verify greenhouse gas emission. He has published more than 50 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals and was contributing author of the 4th IPCC assessment report on GHG mitigation in agriculture – Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change.

Mercedes Fernández (Climate change)

Mercedes Fernández is a senior environmental lawyer at Climate Focus. She has experience in Climate Change policies at the international and European level and she has been involved in a large number of carbon finance transactions especially in South America and Asia. Mercedes has provided legal and regulatory advice to private and public entities on issues associated with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the Kyoto Protocol, and the European Emissions Trading Scheme. Mercedes has also large references in working with developing country institutions and international organizations in the design and implementation of policies related to NAMAs, PoA and REDD+ policies. Equally she has an extensive experience in research in the area of Environmental, Competition and Renewable Energy Law. Before joining Climate Focus, Mercedes was integrated at the legal department of the Öko-Institute where she worked in EU climate change policies. Mercedes studied law in Cantabria and EU and environmental law at Liege and at the European University Institute in Florence. Mercedes is a registered attorney in Spain.