Sharada Kerkar (India)

MPP Policy Café Series - War in Ukraine with Michal Natorski, Andreas Herdt & Anita Magdalena Zalisz

During the MPP Policy Cafe Series, students from the MPP discuss with their professors pressing topics on the agenda from a policy perspective. In this first episode, Professor Michal Natorski shares with us some thoughts on the ongoing war in Ukraine. Special thanks to MPP Students Andreas Herdt & Anita Magdalena Zalisz for preparing this interview and asking the questions.

Bartel Van de Walle - Director of United Nations University

In this episode with Prof. Bartel Van de Walle, director of UNU-MERIT, we talk about his personal story, his understandings about science and academia, the challenges and advantages of online education and his visions about the future of the Institute.

Sharada Kerkar (India)

Sharada's fondest memories of her childhood in Goa are running in the beach and learning to swim with her father. In those occasions, he also inspired Sharada to dream big. When she started University, she was also influenced by different development economists that make her dream that ending poverty was an achievable outcome. In this episode of the podcast, we talked about Sharada's journey through the development sector, her educational experience in rural areas of India, and discussed her understandings on privilege.

Mariam Hatem (Egypt)

Mariam Hatem was born in Egypt, but she moved a lot throughout her life. By being exposed to different cultures, she developed many interests but soon enough she realised her main calling was politics and policy. In this episode you will find how Mariam discovered her passion to become a specialist in foreign policy.

Pedro Pablo Aguilar (Venezuela)

Pedro Pablo was born and raised in Venezuela, but lived most of his adult life in the United States where he graduated as a political scientist from Boston College. Even though he refrains from defining himself on those terms, Pedro has had some experience in political campaigns in Venezuela, and also working in organisations of the civil society for the purpose of improving democracy in Latin America.  In this podcast you will hear about his fascinating journey. From graduating with student debt during the 2008 crisis, to living in Korea, returning to Venezuela to campaign in favor of the opposition party to defeat the regime of Hugo Chávez, only to end up in Maastricht with the aspiration to become a policy expert.