Speakers

Gerard Lyons was formerly Chief Economist and Group Head of Global Research at StandardChartered. He is a recognised expert on the global and UK economy, and during his 13 years at Standard Chartered held a range of senior roles on the bank’s committees. He was previously Chief Economist and Executive Director at DKB International and Chief UK Economist at Swiss Bank Corporation.

He has been a regular speaker at major domestic and world financial conferences and meetings, including the annual meeting of the IMF, the annual and spring meetings of the Institute for International Finance, the World Economic Forum in Davos, and many high profile events here in the UK.

He is a respected forecaster on the global economy. In August 2008, the month before the collapse of Lehman Brothers, he was one of only two UK economists then predicting an imminent deep recession for the UK, forecasting a GDP fall of 1.6 per cent versus a consensus rise of 0.9 per cent. He was ranked number one forecaster globally by Bloomberg (out of over 360) in 2010 and 2011. In December 2011, against the consensus, he predicted both the UK and euro area would be in recession last year.

Dr Alice M. Nah is a Research and Teaching Fellow at the Centre for Applied Human Rights, University of York. She conducts research on migration and asylum in Asia as well as the security of human rights defenders at risk. She has previously published in peer-reviewed journals such as the Asian Journal of Social Sciences, Journal of Human Rights Practice, Australian Journal of Human Rights, and Urban Studies. She is a Co-Convenor of the British Sociological Association’s Sociology of Rights Study Group. She also works closely with civil society organisations and networks, serving as the Vice President of the International Detention Coalition and Advisor to the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network.

Before joining CAHR, Alice held an Endeavour Cheung Kong Research Fellowship at Monash University, Melbourne; the prestigious President’s Graduate Fellowship and research scholarships at the National University of Singapore; as well as a visiting fellowship with the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford.

Alice gained her PhD at the National University of Singapore, where she also completed a Master of Social Science. She completed her undergraduate studies at the University of Leeds as a Chevening Scholar.

Alice is actively involved in a number of transnational civil society networks. She is the Vice President of the International Detention Coalition, a Co-coordinator of the Migration Working Group of Malaysia, and a member of the Steering Committee of the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network (serving as its previous Chair).

She serves as a Board Member of the International Sociological Association’s Thematic Group on Global Justice and Human Rights.

Currently a Postgraduate candidate in Defence, Development and Diplomacy at Durham University, UK and a Civil Society Leadership Scholar associate with Open Society Foundations. She graduated a joint Bachelor’s Degree in Politics and International Relations from Paññasastra University, Cambodia and University of Leuven, Belgium. Apart from these, she also holds a Diploma in Diplomatic Studies from the European Academy of Diplomacy.

Prior to AYLA, Soksamphoas was working with various international and local NGOs in Cambodia concerning from primary education development sector to human rights protection. She was the Co-founder of a local NGO in Cambodia called Hope for Happiness Center in 2010 and was a Project Officer at Action Pour Les Enfants organization from 2013 -2014. She was appointed as a judge at a National Debating and Public Speaking Championship in 2014 organized by the Junior Chamber International – Cambodia.

To date the majority of her research has centred around her recently submitted thesis entitled: ‘China and the Liberal International Order: How is the Rise of China Challenging the norms and practices of the Liberal International Order?’ The thesis focuses on China’s engagement with international institutions particularly focusing attention on the ideological dimension of the challenge that China is supposed to present. Specifically, it looked at China’s role in debates on: Sovereignty at the UN (including the development of the Responsibility to Protect); and International Development (including the China’s role at Busan and the potential effects for the international development architecture). The PhD was generously funded by the Leverhulme Trust through its Liberal Way of War Program at the University of Reading.

Moving forwards, she intends to explore the construction (or reconstruction) of the concepts of ‘security’ and ‘development’ in response to the rise of China and Asia as a region. In particular this will involve a deeper exploration of the changing development and aid architectures and the process of determining what happens to the Millennium Development Goals in 2015.

Her research interests include China’s roles in international institutions, normative and ideological change, East Asian regionalism and changing global order especially agency of rising powers and region in shaping global order.