Andrea Gruber, CEE regional director of Pressley Ridge Foundation
Andrea Gruber currently works for Pressley Ridge as the Director of Central and East European Operations. In her position she is responsible for establishing Pressley Ridge’s Regional Training Center and Demonstration Site based in Hungary, as well as for setting up operations in other countries of the region. Ms. Gruber received her master’s degree in Economic and Social Development from the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh where she continued to serve as an adjunct instructor teaching skills courses in development management, such as ‘Training of trainers’, and the ‘Logframe and Development Planning’. She is currently finishing up a PhD degree in International Development and Public Administration at the same school. As a Hungarian national Ms. Gruber worked on USAID’s Strengthening Civil Society project in Hungary. She served as a Training Manager and as an Advocacy Program Manager working closely with grassroots level NGOs in Hungary on organizational capacity building. She is a co-founder of a Hungarian national youth organization, the work of which she managed for five years.
Tímea Junghaus – curator, art historian
Tímea Junghaus graduated from Eötvös Loránd University’s (Hungary), department of art history. She is author and co-editor of the comprehensive publication on European Roma visual art, Meet Your Neighbours – Contemporary Roma Art from Europe (OSI Publication, 2006). She was curator of the Roma Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale. She is currently finishing her PhD studies at Eötvös Loránd University’s Doctoral School of Phylosophy, in Film Media- and Cultural Theory. Since 2010 she is employed as a young researcher of the Institute for Art History, at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She is the executive director of the European Roma Cultural Foundation.
habil. Prof. Dr. Éva Judit Kovács, PhD in Sociology
Éva Judit Kovács, sociologist, senior researcher at the Institute of Sociology of the Hungarian Academy of Sience. Her research involves ethnicity, ethnic coexistence, equal opportunities, the empirical appearance of historical remembrance, and also the social proprieties, norms, ideologies and dialogues regulating these phenomena.
Angéla Kóczé, PHD candidate in Sociology and Social Anthropology
Angéla Kóczé is a sociologist, research fellow in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. She is former funding director of the European Roma Information Office (ERIO) in Brussels, as well as the former director of the human rights education programme at the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC) in Budapest, Hungary. Moreover, she was the founding director of the Romaversitas program in Budapest which offers a scholarship and mentorship for Roma university students. She is active in the Romani movement for the emancipation of Roma in Europe, and has a particular research and policy interest in issues of women's political representation and social justice.
Sarolta Péli, art historian
Sarolta Péli, art historian, studied at Eötvös Lóránd University's Faculty of Arts, majoring in History of Art and German in Budapest. Since 2007 she has been working at Pax TV, a religion-themed public broadcast channel as an editor. The goals of the station include presenting the history and cultural background of different religions, premiering documentaries on art and culture and supporting minorities. In 2007 as a co-founder she started the shortfilm festival EUShorts in Budapest. As a cultural manager she organizes exhibitions, helps prepare documentary films and manages youth workshops.
Mária Bogdán, media theorist, PhD student
Her main research interest is related to media representation and the modern forms of racism. She has been doing her PhD at the Corvinus University of Budapest, focusing on the mediarepresentation of the Roma in Hungary. She is a Fulbright Alumna and has done part of her PhD research for one year at Columbia University in New York. She made her graduate studies at the University of Pécs and the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest. She is the member of Fulbright Hungary Association, board member of the European Roma Cultural Fundation and the head of the board of the Romaveristas Fooundation.
Anna Lujza Szász, Sociologist, PhD student
Anna Lujza Szász, sociologist, did a Master in ’Nationalism Studies’ at Central European University and a year later graduated from University College London with an MA in ’Culture, Identity and Power’. Currently she has been a Doctoral candidate in the Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Program, Eötvös Lóránd University, Budapest. She was a junior researcher at the Institue of Sociology, Hungarian Academy of Sciences; she has been working as a junior resesarcher at the Wiesenthal Institute, Vienna. Her research involves Roma contemporary visual art; ethical, pedagogical, political implication of various practices of ethnicity, historical remembrance; dynamics between domination and resistance; and the ethnic dimension in structural formations.