​Dr Roxani Krystalli is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) at the University of St Andrews School of International Relations in Scotland. Her research and teaching focus on feminist peace and conflict studies, as well as on the politics of nature and place. Roxani is particularly interested in the role and ethics of storytelling about violence, as well as in how the study and pedagogy of peace would be different if we centered experiences of love and care. A key question animating Roxani's explorations within and beyond the academy is how people reimagine worlds in the wake of loss. 

For over a decade, Roxani has worked at the intersection of gender and peace-building as an academic researcher and humanitarian practitioner. Until May 2020, she was Program Manager at the Feinstein International Center, where she managed a portfolio aiming to increase the use of research in humanitarian policy and practice. Roxani has partnered with a variety of organizations, including Oxfam GB, Mercy Corps, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and more, to conduct and analyze research on the experiences of conflict-affected people in Uganda, South Sudan, Syria, and the refugee crisis in Greece, Jordan, and Turkey. Roxani regularly advises international organizations and NGOs on various aspects of gender, justice, and peace-building.

Roxani's PhD on the politics and hierarchies of victimhood in Colombia received the Peter Ackerman Award for best PhD dissertation at The Fletcher School in 2020. She has also been recognized with the Presidential Award for Citizenship and Public Service at Tufts University. For her teaching, she has been shortlisted for several awards at the University of St Andrews, nominated by her students, faculty colleagues, and managers. In 2022, she was nominated for the Teaching Excellence Awards, as well as the Students' Association "Outstanding Innovation in Teaching." In 2021, she was one of three colleagues across the University shortlisted for "Outstanding Teacher, Arts and Divinity." 

Roxani shares her non-academic writing and essays on the website Stories of Conflict and Love, which won the Best Individual Blog award from the International Studies Association in 2019.

Roxani's research has been supported by numerous grants and fellowships from the United States Institute of Peace, the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Henry J. Leir Institute, the Folke Bernadotte Academy, and the World Peace Foundation. Her writing has appeared in the International Studies Review, International Feminist Journal of Politics, the European Journal of International Relations​, the Journal of Narrative Politics, ​the ​Journal of Refugee Studies, the Oxford Handbook on Gender and Conflict, Disasters, the Washington Post, and in other outlets.

Roxani holds a PhD and MA from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, as well as a BA from Harvard University. She is from Thessaloniki, Greece, and lives in Scotland. ​

Creative writing

This website primarily discusses Roxani's work as an academic and practitioner. In addition to these pursuits, Roxani is a storyteller who thinks and writes about nature and place, memory and loss, violence and care, and notions of home. Those reflections can be found on her website, Stories of Conflict and Love. 
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Roxani also has a newsletter through which she shares (very) occasional reflections on the above topics. If you wish to receive this newsletter directly in your inbox, you may sign up in the box below.