Bio

Christina has significant experience as an advocate of small arms and gender issues at the regional and international level. Previously, she worked for the Bonn International Center for Conversion in the Horn of Africa. She has also been an active member of the International Action Network on Small Arms, and the Conflict, Development and Peace Network. In her spare time, Christina organizes book drives for libraries in Africa. Currently, she is on secondment to the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

Christina has a Diplôme (Programme International du Sciences Politiques et Sociales) from the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (1998), a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from the University of British Columbia (1999), a post-graduate diploma in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies (2000), and a Ph.D. in International Politics from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth (2006). She has lived in six countries in Europe and East Africa and speaks English, French, Italian, Cantonese and some Kiswahili.

Issue of Investigation

As a 2007 recipient of the Gordon Global Fellowship, Christina built on the research of her Ph.D. dissertation entitled 'Sustainable Disarmament and Development: The Challenge of Small Arms in Karamoja, Uganda'. Her work questioned the current peacebuilding orthodoxy, which believes that re-enforcing the state is the best means of ensuring the human security of citizens. Christina's fellowship project concentrated on finding participatory policy solutions to the misuse and proliferation of small arms in pastoralist communities in East Africa, including demand-oriented alternatives to disarmament.