Staff

President

Edward Lemon is President of the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs and Research Assistant Professor at The Bush School of Government and Public Service, Texas A&M University, Washington D.C. Teaching Site. He is a Global Fellow at the Wilson Center. He was previously a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Political Science at Columbia University. He earned a Ph.D. in Politics and International Relations at the University of Exeter in 2016. Dr. Lemon’s research focuses on authoritarianism and security issues in Central Asia. He has spent over three years conducting fieldwork in Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. He is editor of the book Critical Approaches to Security in Central Asia (Routledge, 2018). His research has been published in Democratization, Central Asian Affairs, Caucasus Survey, Journal of Democracy, Central Asian Survey, the Review of Middle Eastern Studies and The RUSI Journal.

Managing Director

Bradley Jardine manages Oxus Society’s research portfolio and supports the organization in its operations. He is a Fellow at the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute on China and the United States. He is a former journalist in the post-Soviet space, having worked as an editor of The Moscow Times in Russia and as Caucasus correspondent for Eurasianet, where he documented Armenia’s Velvet Revolution. He holds a double MA in Russian and Eurasian Studies and Baltic Sea Region Studies from the University of Glasgow, as well as an MMS in Global Affairs from Tsinghua University, Beijing. Jardine’s research focuses on the proliferation of surveillance technology in Central Asia and China’s growing security presence in the countries of the former Soviet Union. He is the author of the Kennan Institute monograph Great Wall of Steel: China’s Strategy to Secure Central and South Asia. His work has appeared in Washington Post, the Guardian, Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, BBC, CNN, New York Times, The Atlantic and TIME, among others.

Program Manager

Mira Beissenova is Program Manager at the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, where she manages our fellowship programs. Since 2022, she has managed the Kazakhstan Futures and Oxus Fellowship programs funded by the National Endowment for Democracy. She is a development communication specialist with 14 years of experience. Mira has worked with the UN, World Bank, EU and local NGOs and media outlets in Kazakhstan.

Program Manager

Albina Tortbayeva is a Program Manager at the Oxus Society. She has over a decade of experience designing, managing and evaluating donor-funded projects in education, youth, human rights and migration in Central Asia. In 2023, she registered ARLAB, a women-led non-profit organization that aims to foster local research capacity and youth-focused programming as well as build connections between scholars from Kazakhstan and globally.

Senior Researcher

Noah Tucker is a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and a Research Associate at the GWU Central Asia Program. He works primarily on social conflict and conflict prevention, from violent extremism and (Islamist and far-right groups) to ethnic and regional conflict. He also focuses on religious groups, religious freedom, and the interactions between social mobilization (often online) and politics.

Trainer and Mentor, Oxus Fellowship

Dina Sharipova is an assistant professor at the Graduate School of Public Policy, Nazarbayev University. She previously worked at KIMEP University. Dr. Sharipova’s research interests include state formation, formal and informal institutions, identity politics and social capital in Central Asia. She is the author of State-Building in Kazakhstan Continuity and Transformation of Informal Institutions published by Lexington Books in 2018. Her research has been published in journals such as Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Central Asia Survey, Central Asian Affairs and Nationalities Papers. Sharipova received her Doctorate in Political Science from Indiana University.

Trainer and Mentor, Oxus Fellowship

Madina Junussova is a Senior Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy and Administration (IPPA) at the University of Central Asia (UCA) and Lecturer at the CERGE-EI Foundation (Czech Republic). Dr. Junussova has over 15 years of experience in urban and regional planning, public policy and complex research. She is the author of Cities and Local Governments in Central Asia: Administrative, Fiscal, and Political Urban Battles (Routledge 2020). Dr. Junussova received her PhD in Public Policy from Carleton University.

Trainer and Mentor, Oxus Fellowship

Khalida Azhigulova is associate professor of law and director of the Center for Research on Human Rights, Inclusion and Civil Society at the Eurasian Technological University. She is also national coordinator of the educational project on protecting children from violence, bullying and cyberbullying “Street Law Kazakhstan,” an advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan and expert in the Interdepartmental Commission of the Security Council of the Republic of Kazakhstan on issues related to economic security.  She is the author and coordinator of over 40 scientific and analytical articles and advocacy campaigns. She received her PhD from the University of Leicester.