Nikhila Anoth is a full-time Masters student studying ‘Global Cinemas and the Transcultural’ with an emphasis on Japanese cinema. Her special interest is Japanese animation and the language, and she plans to visit Japan very soon. She did her undergraduate studies at Delhi University, India. She wishes to see more of the world, write, watch more movies and make some as well.

Fiza Asar was born and brought up in Karachi. She is an International Relations major from Bay Area, California. She spent most of her high school years and college years in student activism, spending time with victims of rape, orphans, the mentally challenged, peace activism, and the victims of racism and/or prejudices. She worked in Pakistan’s non-profit sector, mainly in the fields of communications, internet marketing, general marketing and fund-raising. In London, she has been working part-time with an international women’s organization dealing with campaign development and social media marketing. She is also involved in citizen journalism and maintaining several blogs. She completed her MA in Global Media and Post-national Communication in 2010.  Her research interests include media and politics, the image of “Pakistanis,” “Muslims” and their portrayal as the “other” in society. She is interested in how this treatment of the South is resulting in increasing the divide between peoples, hence further fragmenting the society, and whether social media can change this scenario.

Shabina Aslam is a part-time student on the Global Media degree. She is a freelance producer, director and writer specialising in creating new work with young people and their communities.

Morgana Benedetti is half Italian and half Portuguese and has just moved from Lisbon to London to do her MA in Critical Media. She has studied Political Science and International Relations, done some work for the Portuguese parliament and worked for an NGO. She is interested in the opinion-making role of the media as well as in new media, mainly social media platforms and its diversity.

Rounwah Adly Riyadh Bseiso undertook a double major in political science and international development for her BA in McGill University, and continued afterwards to undertake an MA in International Human Rights Law in the American University in Cairo. She completed her second MA in Global Media and Postnational Communication in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She plans to continue on to pursue her PhD in London in the field of media. Her interests are varied and include but are not limited to communication studies, social media, theories of resistance, international development, politics, media and journalism, and international (humanitarian and human rights) law. She has worked with the United Nations (UNHCR,UNDP, and UN HABITAT), the Palestine Land Society, the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and Assawt daily newspaper in Kuwait.

Sheyma Buali is a founding member of Project: Carousel!  Prior to coming to London, she was a TV producer in public and private media sectors in the US and Bahrain.  After completing her MA in Critical Media and Culture Studies in 2009, Sheyma began her own research exploring the media of spaces and the influence of urbanization on everyday culture in her native Bahrain, and the city of Manama in particular.  Sheyma’s written and photographic works on the topic have appeared in a number of UK, European and Middle Eastern publications.

Salvatore (Salvo) Di Rosa completed his MA in Critical Media and Cultural Studies at SOAS in 2010. His background is in Languages and Literatures [he completed a BA in Comparative Studies (English and Arabic) at the University of Catania, Italy], but his “morbid curiosity” has prompted him to take an interest in politics, media and its “radical manifestations”. Some of his interests lie at the interplay of democratic system and the masses, the open source phenomenon, video games and in particular the concept of radical gaming, the consequences of a possible adoption of a P2P model by the cultural industry and relative consequences on copyright. His research focuses on video games in the Middle East.

Elisabet Helander is a consultant in media and development. In October 2010 she was organized a public event and presented a case study at Overseas Development Institute as part of her work. She completed her MA in Global Media and the Political Economy of Institutions at SOAS in 2009. Elisabet was a foreign correspondent based in Johannesburg 1993 – 1996 and in London 1997 – 2008.

Kajalie Shehreen Islam is postgraduate student at the Centre for Media and Film Studies at SOAS, doing an MA in Critical Media and Cultural Studies. She completed her undergraduate and (first) postgraduate degrees in Mass Communication and Journalism at the University of Dhaka in Bangladesh. She is interested in gender and media, media and development, film and advertising in South Asia (specifically Bangladesh and India), and the Othering of the non-West (especially Islam) by the Western media.

Alessandro Jedlowski graduated with an MA in Critical Media and Cultural Studies from SOAS in September 2008. He’s currently doing a PhD in African Studies at the university of Naples “L’Orientale” after six months working in Lisbon on a research project about African contemporary art in the Portuguese speaking countries. His interests are mostly focused on contemporary visual arts and cinema in Sub-Saharan Africa, and his PhD research project will be on the Nigerian video industry, its relationship with local audiences and its specific way of dealing with matters of piracy and copyrights.

Zahrah Mamode completed her undergraduate degree at King’s College London in Religion, Philosophy and Ethics. She has an MA in Global Media and Postnational Communication from SOAS. She is interested in the representation of Muslims in the media who do not come from a stereotypical “Muslim” country, gender and the media and also the cultural transactions that take place between  subtitled films and audiences who watch them. She is also intrigued by how visual art transmits a variety of messages and emotions through one piece.

George Morris, one of Project Carousel’s founding members, has been involved with PC since 2008. He finished his MA in Global Media and Postnational Communications at SOAS in 2009 and has returned to pursue a research degree in emerging digital cultures with a focus on Eastern Africa. His research looks at how social media could provide alternative spaces of political and cultural production for more marginalised members of society. George has worked as a media and communications consultant for UNICEF Ethiopia and the International Institute for Environment and Development. George is presently working with SOAS to build a social media solution to help students with specific learning disabilities.

Laura Kate Morris is at the moment surprised by her current involvement in academia, a place she didn’t expect to find herself after planting turnips in the wilds of central Brooklyn, photographing unallowed in junkyards, and exploring aviation-free travel options. Studying for an MA in Critical Media and Cultural Studies, she is interested in tracking down the creeping influences of images and how they factor into varied perceptions of the world.

Nicole Parr is a part-time student pursuing an M.A. in Global Media and Postnational Communication at SOAS. She conducted her undergraduate studies at New York University and has a B.A. in both Fine Arts (History of Art) and Latin American Studies. At the undergraduate level she also completed internships with non-profit news organisations in Washington, DC and New York, but over the last several years has been working as a project manager in the field of corporate consulting in both Washington, DC and London. She is particularly interested in instances of media as an effective tool for social change and the manipulation of image and impression.

Elroy Pinto, born and raised in Mumbai, India, was introduced to cinema in his undergraduate course in Mumbai in 2006, since then he has pursued films by working at film festivals as a consultant and as a curator. He has also taught a module in Cinema to undergraduate students in Mumbai. He is currently pursuing his MA in Global Cinemas at SOAS. In his spare time he also works as a general manager for a professional video gaming team known as Fnatic that has players from around the world who get paid to play computer games professionally.

Matti Pohjonen is currently an independent researcher / visual artist working at the intersection between theory, technology and visual arts. He was until recently a Research and Teaching Fellow in Digital Culture at SOAS. His background is in media anthropology, politics and journalism as well as in visual arts (photography, painting, design). His work aims to combine critical anthropology/cultural studies with recent developments in computational and digital theory, with a special focus on the practical experimental side of emerging digital technologies for artistic, commercial and social purposes. He works mostly, but not exclusively, in Finland, UK, India and Ethiopia.

Shaoli Rudra is currently doing her masters in Critical Media and Cultural Studies. This follows a degree in History, a post-graduation in Broadcast Journalism and 2 eventful years as a news editor at a major Indian 24 hour news channel. Her interests include the news media, film, football and food and she dreams of  a career involving all four. Till such time, she hopes to work for a production house specializing in feature documentaries.

Osama Salameh often introduces himself as “an intellectual-in-the-making”. He is a Jordan-based communications-practitioner – a Press Officer for the Royal Hashemite Court. He received a degree in law but didn’t pursue a legal career. He started in public service and politics where he was exposed to communications as practice and, eventually, pursued and concluded a SOAS M.A. in Global Media and Post-national Communication in 2009, rendering his practice into praxis.  In media studies, his passion remains audience studies; influenced by his dissertation experience on youth audience in Amman-Jordan. His political interests are endless but becoming streamlined regionally and the locally. Research interests include: Jordanian identity politics from a communicative perspective, media manifestations of female subalternity, exploring relationships between religion(s), language(s), and communications, and film-making/studies with a regional focus.

Maria Schonfeld received her MA in Critical Media and Cultural Studies from SOAS in September 2008. She has since been working in the third sector and working to set up a media-related charity called Akosia. Their first project is going to take place in Accra, Ghana.

Pontus Westerberg is a part time student on the MA Global Media degree. He’s an online campaigner who has worked for several NGOs in the UK, Kenya and Guyana and currently works for global justice campaigners the World Development Movement. He’s interested in how the web can be used for activism, resistance and campaigning and how the terms ‘social media’, ‘new media’ and ‘ICTs’ can be replaced with something better.

Barrie McClune received her MA in Critical Media and Cultural Studies from SOAS in 2008.  Her research interests include African cinema and audience reception, but she is generally interested in community engagement with media.  With her work at California Newsreel, a non-profit film distributor in San Francisco, she uses social media to engage diverse audiences with inspiring, educational video.

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