Our Past
We launched in September 2015 in partnership with the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore. Since then we have held numerous public lectures, seminars, youth-oriented activities on topics such as politics, economics, culture, and social issues. In addition, we regularly host international scholars for networking and research opportunities.
Going forward, we plan to build on our strengths. We intend to foster research output by local and international scholars conducting research on topics relevant to our mission. We will also continue to reach out to the Kuwaiti public and civil society through various activities.
Our People
Bahtiyar Kurambayev
Associate Professor
is an Associate Professor at GUST. He has a PhD in Mass Communications from the University of Southern Mississippi. Prior to joining GUST in 2023, he has held teaching positions at American University of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan) and KIMEP University (Kazakhstan). His research interests include international journalism practice, journalism education, and ethics in media among others. E-mail: Kurambayev.B@gust.edu.kw
Ben Howarth
Assistant Professor
Dr Ben Haworth is an Assistant Professor of English. He specializes in early modern English literature with a particular focus on Shakespeare’s works. His current interests lie in the social power and agency of Renaissance theatre, contemporary performances and reception of Shakespeare’s plays in the Arab world, and the intersection of Arabic and Western cultures in the academic dissemination of early modern drama. Dr Haworth’s latest monograph, Shakespeare’s Liminal Spaces: Contesting Authority on the Early Modern Stage, was published in 2024 by Manchester University Press. E-mail:
Haworth.B@gust.edu.kw
Carine Zanchi
Assistant Professor of French
Dr. Carine Zanchi holds a Master's degree in Middle Eastern history and a Ph.D. in Applied Linguistics from the University of Lyon 2. She currently holds a position as Assistant Professor in French at the Gulf University of Science and Technology (GUST) in Kuwait. She previously taught French at different universities in Bahrain and Jordan and worked as a high school French teacher in Jordan.Her research interests include: the history of language learning and teaching, textbook analysis for teaching French (focusing on identity and feminism), learning and teaching French language in educational contexts, MFL teacher education, curriculum development, teaching methodologies, teaching contextualization, reading skills in a foreign language, educational technology, and currently AI in language teaching and learning. She has published several articles in French and English and has presented at various international conferences in Cyprus, Belgium, France, Greece, England, Portugal, Jordan, Mexico, Lebanon, and the United States. E-mail: Zanchi.C@gust.edu.kw
Cristina Navarro
Associate Professor
Dr. Cristina Navarro is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Mass Communication Department at Gulf University for Science and Technology in Kuwait. Her research interests include journalism roles, online public relations, social media communication, professionalism, leadership, and public relations competencies, knowledge, and skills. She holds a PhD from Rey Juan Carlos University (Spain) and has served as a visiting scholar at Pennsylvania State University, the University of Alabama, and the University of Florida. E-mail: Navarro.C@gust.edu.kw
Ismael Louber
Assistant Professor
Dr. Ismael Louber is a language educator and researcher specialising in TESOL and English as a Medium of Instruction, with a particular interest in how language education connects to culture and policy in the Gulf region. He earned his Doctorate in Education from the University of Exeter, where he explored the links between language, religious identity, and policy. Currently teaching at Gulf University for Science and Technology in Kuwait, Dr. Louber has also worked in Saudi Arabia, the UK, and France and has contributed to curriculum development, teacher training, and doctoral research supervision. His work focuses on EMI’s influence on identity, the role of religion in English language teaching, and racial issues in TESOL, with a strong emphasis on qualitative research and meaningful discussions in global English education. E-mail: Louber.I@gust.edu.kw
Ismail Lala
Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Gulf University for Science and Technology
Dr. Ismail Lala is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy. Prior to his post at GUST, he taught Islamic Studies at the University of Oxford where he completed his postgraduate and doctoral training. Dr. Lala has also studied at Harvard University and completed seminary training at Darul-Uloom al-Arabiyyah al-Islamiyyah. He holds licenses in hadith transmission and Hanafi jurisprudence and has authored numerous books and peer-reviewed journals on diverse topics from Qur’anic exegesis to Sufi metaphysics, and from Islamic philosophy to religious medical ethics. He is on the International Editorial Board for The Maghreb Review, The Oxford Interfaith Forum, and INJAS. E-mail: Lala.I@gust.edu.kw
Jennifer Lofkrantz
Associate Professor
Dr. Jennifer Lofkrantz is an Associate Professor of History in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences and Chair of the Global Studies Centre. She holds a Ph.D in African History from York University, Toronto and is the author of Ransoming Prisoners in Precolonial Muslim Western Africa (University of Rochester Press, 2023). Her research has also been published in Slavery & Abolition, The Journal of African History, International Historical African Studies, African Economic History, and The Journal of West African History among others. She is primarily a historian of precolonial West Africa and of contemporary northern Nigeria and the Sahel region. Her areas of expertise include historical and contemporary West African jihad movements, historical and contemporary West African ransoming practices, Salafism, Salafi Jihadism, Islamic law (Mālikī), comparative historical and contemporary slavery, and women and gender in Africa. E-mail:
Lofkrantz.J@gust.edu.kw
Manal Hosny
Assistant Professor of French and the Associate Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences.
Dr. Manal Hosny is specializing in 19th-century French Studies. In her research, she adopts an interdisciplinary approach to investigate the social, intellectual and political forces that shaped late 19th-century France. Her current research interests focus on identities (national, social and gender), colonial discourse, transfer of knowledge, school novels and textbooks, and Franco-Egyptian relations. E-mail:
Hosny.M@gust.edu.kw
Marta M Tryzna
Assistant Professor
Dr. Marta Maria Tryzna earned her PhD in linguistics from the University of Iowa in 2009, and then joined the American University of the Middle East (AUM) in Kuwait to set up the MBA managerial communication program and the undergraduate English Writing Program. IN 2011, she joined the English Department at Gulf University for Science and Technology (GUST) where she teaches applied linguistics and writing courses. She served as the Writing Program Coordinator and Faculty Senate President at GUST. Her research interests are in applied linguistics, bilingualism, intercultural communication, and language education. Her research has been published by Springer, John Benjamins, Elsevier and Routledge. E-mail: Tryzna.M@gust.edu.kw
Martin Loyato
Associate Professor
Dr. Martín Loyato is an Argentinean-American composer, multi-instrumentalist, improviser, poet, conductor, educator, and visual artist. He is an Associate Professor of Music at GUST. He holds a B.F.A. in Composition and Trumpet Performance from CalArts and a Ph.D. in Composition from Stony Brook University. He has received numerous awards for his music and performances. His compositions span electro-acoustic, orchestral, choral, and multimedia works, with performances across the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. He has released three solo albums: Syncretism (2010), Involution (2017), and Cinematic Tales (2019). His work is also featured in books on graphic scores and music therapy, alongside his own poetry collections, Helechos del Alma and K-ro – Poetic Suite of Six Petals. Dr. Loyato played a key role in developing Lebanon's first Bachelor of Performing Arts program at the Lebanese American University. E-mail:
Loyato.M@gust.edu.kw
Shahd Alshammari
Assistant Professor of Literature, Department of English
Dr. Shahd AlShammari is Associate Professor of Literature. Her area of research is Gulf women, Disability Studies, and life writing. She has edited Gulf Women's Lives (University of Exeter Press, UK, 2024) and is the author of Head Above Water (Feminist Press, New York, 2023). E-mail:
Alshammari.S@gust.edu.kw
Soonhyuck Park
Professor
E-mail: Park.S@gust.edu.kw
Thorsten Botz-Bornstein
Professor of Philosophy
PhD in Philosophy, Oxford University. Research interests: Aesthetics, Non-Western philosophy, Comparative philosophy. E-mail:
Botz.T@gust.edu.kw
Víctor Parra-Guinaldo
Assistant Professor
Dr. Víctor Parra-Guinaldo obtained both his master’s and Ph.D. in Rhetoric-Composition, Linguistics, and Applied Linguistics at Arizona State University and has since taught a variety of composition and linguistics courses at the undergraduate level and the MATESOL program. His research includes second-language teaching and learning, English as a lingua franca, and written formative writing. He maintains an active publishing agenda and has published with Routledge, Springer, and Equinox Publishing, among others. E-mail: Parraguinaldo.V@gust.edu.kw
Associate Members
Mariam F. Alkazemi
Assistant professor of public relations at Virginia Commonwealth University
Ph.D. in mass communications, University of Florida. Research interests: media effects, health.
Emily Goshey, PhD
GUST research affiliate and a postgraduate research fellow at the Institute for Studies in Global Prosperity
Dr. Emily Goshey finished her Ph.D. in the Department of Religion at Princeton University in June 2019. Her ongoing project focuses on the role of faith and religion in social movements and in collective responses to injustice. Fascinated by the study of modern Islam through less-conventional approaches, she has explored perennial questions about Islam’s place in the modern world and Islamic orthodoxy by studying minorities and material culture.
Nesma Elsakaan
Assistant Professor of Arabic at the University of Palermo, Italy
Her research covers women’s writings, gender studies, and intertextuality. Currently, she works on the representations of black women in Arabic literature. Among her publications are Islamic Feminism in Egypt: Women, Religion and Gender Justice (2019, in Italian), Niswiyya, Nisā’iyya and Unthawiyya: Some Reflections on Arabic Terms for ‘Feminism’ (Littérature et culture arabes contemporaines, 7/2019), and “Milānīn”: ru’ya taḥarruriyya li-l-lawn wa-l-ğasad min ḫilāl al-sard al-nisā’iyy (Rawāfid, Beirut 2022).
Lisa Blaydes
Professor of Political Science at the University of Stanford
She is the author of Elections and Distributive Politics in Mubarak’s Egypt (Cambridge University Press, 2011) and State of Repression: Iraq under Saddam Hussein (Princeton University Press, 2018). She holds degrees in Political Science (PhD) from the University of California, Los Angeles and International Relations (BA, MA) from Johns Hopkins University.
Tanver Khan
Researcher at Department of Political Science, University of Kashmir, Srinagar, India
He works on International Politics, Geopolitics, Geostrategy, Indo-Pacific, South Asia, Belt and Road Initiative, and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
