Members

Celine Mitchell

Celine is a PhD candidate in the Department of International History, writing a contemporary history of Algerian immigrants in France through the lens of hip-hop. Her doctoral thesis examines the influences of Islam, colonialism, discrimination, poverty and violence in the lives of second and third-generation Algerian immigrants. Alongside her research, Celine has been actively involved in youth work over the last ten years, with particular experience in supporting refugees/asylum seekers in the UK and young people in foster care.

Rahul Rose

Rahul is interested in popular Hinduism and its intersection with understandings of self and subjectivity in South Asia. Through long-term fieldwork in Varanasi, he is currently investigating how particular ideas and practices of attention have come to shape dominant North Indian musical, ritual and political traditions. Using archival sources, he is also researching the popularisation of yoga in the early twentieth century and its entanglement with the genesis of experimental psychology during the same period. This work is being carried out as part of a PhD in anthropology at the LSE. 

Nils Mallock

Nils is a PhD candidate in Psychology and Behavioural Science at the LSE, and Research Fellow at King’s College London for the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation (ICSR). Nils has a background in behavioural science and policy think tanks, and has worked in various roles in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, the West Bank, Germany, and China.

His PhD examines the psychological causes of violent and peaceful political action in high risk (e.g., conflict-affected) environments. Research often assesses political conflict at the level of group dynamics or societal developments. Instead, my work focuses on how individual perceptions can shape political attitudes, intentions and engagement behaviour despite high costs and risks to actors. This research has so far involved fieldwork in Iraq, Lebanon, Israel and the West Bank, and is focused on quantitative data collection and experimental studies, in addition to interviews with civil society activists and members of armed groups.

Find Nils on the departmental profiles and on LinkedIn.

Haile Zola

Haile is a fourth year PhD student at the European Institute. She holds a Master’s in Comparative Politics from LSE and a Bachelor’s in Government from Reichman University. Her PhD project looks at how European welfare states accommodate ethnic and religious minority groups who have specific cultural and religious needs. Specifically, her project focuses on the British and French welfare states and on the Charedi minority, but she hopes to expand her project to more welfare states and more minority groups after her PhD. She is interested in research which takes bottom-up approaches to Political Science and is interested in questions surrounding how resources are distributed in society. Outside of academia, she likes to spend her time at the beach with her daughter.  

Angga Indraswara

Angga is a PhD Candidate in Political Science in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is a Jesuit priest from Indonesia. He holds an MRes in Political Science and an MSc in Comparative Politics from the LSE, an MA in Theology from Sanata Dharma University, and a BA (Hons) from the University of Melbourne.

He works in the field of comparative politics, with particular interests in the intersection between religion and politics, democracy and democratisation, and Indonesian politics. In his ongoing PhD research, he investigates the temporal and denominational variations in the political representation and influence of Catholic and Protestant minorities in Indonesia from 1965 until the present.

Noel Mariam George

Noel is a doctoral student at the London School of Economics and Political Science, focusing on citizenship histories in South Asia. Her research examines the evolution of citizenship dynamics in the region, integrating insights from historical analysis, law, and political science. In addition to archival work, which consumes most of her time, she finds great joy in shaping scholarly discourse as an educator and editor, while curatorial projects allow her to explore creative avenues of storytelling and representation. Beyond academia, Noel and her husband cherish their travels as invaluable learning experiences and treasure the richness of cultural exploration and historical discovery.

Harriet Solomon

Harriet is a full-time PhD candidate in International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Harriet holds a BA in International History and an MA in Modern History also from the LSE.

In addition to her PhD research, Harriet is Co-Managing Editor of the Cold War History Journal and Features Writer for the Kleio Historical Journal. She also has a wealth of editorial and publishing experience, having worked at Bradt Guides - the world’s largest independently owned travel publishing house - throughout her academic career.

Harriet's PhD explores the representation of Islam and Islamist organisations across four periods: the 1979 Iranian Revolution, the 1995-2001 Taliban regime, and the rise of Al-Qaeda and ISIS in the late 20th and early 21st century. She is particularly interested in the impact of changing technologies on the western media landscape, the rise of ego-centric journalism and the evolving definition of what it means to be a correspondent covering Islam in the past forty years.

Find Harriet on the departmental profiles and on LinkedIn.

Dr Anishka Gheewala

Anishka is a social anthropologist working within the fields of the anthropology of religion, kinship and play, specifically playful religious life. Drawing on eighteen months of fieldwork (and beyond), Anishka's doctoral thesis focussed on the changing landscape of prayer across diasporas, specifically in the Pushtimarg (Path of Grace), touching on other bhakti Hindu sects, though with a wider interest in the human-divine relationship more broadly. The thesis explored intersecting themes such as play, transcendence and immanence and universality of categories, including the relationship between the environment and religion, kinship and specifically notions of care and care-giving in childhood.

Her fieldwork was in Gujarat, India and Leicester, UK, and now, online. The thesis forms the foundation of her current monograph project. More recently, Anishka formed part of the Covid and Care Research Group at the LSE conducting digital ethnography with Hindu communities, then new parents, during the outbreak of Covid-19. Her upcoming co-authored book, which is under peer review with McFarland Publishers, deals online Hindu bhakti life using a combination of digital and physical ethnography. 

Anishka has an MSc in Religion in the Contemporary World based at the LSE Anthropology department, and a BA in French, Spanish and European Studies from the University of Bath. She has taught as a Graduate Teaching Assistant a number of times, taught at the LSE Summer School on Childhood and holds a Postgraduate certificate in Higher Education (PGCertHE). 

Find Anishka on the departmental profiles.