Prof. Balázs graduated in Budapest at the Faculty of Economics of the “Karl Marx” University (later: Budapest School of Economics, today Corvinus University). He got his PhD degree and habilitated at the same University. He is a ScD of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. In parallel with his government and diplomatic career he has been teaching and doing research. He was nominated Professor of the Corvinus University in 2000 and joined the CEU as a full time Professor in 2005. He is regularly teaching at various home and foreign universities, lecturing in English, French, German and Hungarian.
Bogdan Radu received his MA in European politics from the University of Manchester (MA) and his Ph.D. Political Science from the University of California, Irvine, USA. He completed his doctoral degree in 2007, with the dissertation Traditional Believers and Democratic Citizens. A Contextualized Analysis of the Effects of Religion on Support for Democracy in East Central Europe. Since 2007, he holds a lecturer position in the Department of Political Science at Babes-Bolyai University. In 2012 Bogdan joined CENS as a Visiting Researcher. His research revolved around issues of political culture, democratic transition and consolidation and comparative studies of public opinion in the context of an enlarged Europe. He conducted research on religious values and political beliefs, for both adults and the youth, focusing on the relationships between religiosity and religious participation on the one hand, and political participation and support for democracy on the other hand. More recently Bogdan became interested in studying the concept of public opinion in the realm of international governance, especially focusing on international development. He is committed to interdisciplinary approaches and the combined use of empirical and interpretive methods.
Hana Semanic is a Research Assistant at the Central European University, Centre for EU Enlargement Studies. She joined CENS in November 2010, concentrating on SEE-EU relations with a special focus on the Western Balkans. Hana Semanic earned her M.A. degree in International Relations and European Studies from the CEU in 2010 supported by the Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship. Her thesis focused on the security sector reform analysing the dissimilar forms and modalities of local ownership in defence and police reforms in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The systematic field research conducted for it helped her narrowly define her future research and professional interests. Before coming to the CEU, she worked for a development agency (2007-2009) managing a cross-border cooperation project between Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia.
Marcela is PhD student in the field of Economics at the University "Stefan cel Mare" Suceava. Her research interest is mainly in cross-border areas with focus on Romania-Ukraine-Republic of Moldova area. She joined CENS in October 2012, her work being mainly in European Neighbourhood Policy and Eastern Partnership.
István Szabó joined CENS in January, 2012 as a Research Assistant, responsible for post-Soviet countries, with a special focus on Eastern Partnership and EU-Russia relations.
Andras is a PhD student at the Department of Political Science with an interest in security studies, IR theory and foreign policy decision making. He joined the CENS in early 2011, and is responsible for projects relating to the theory and practice of European foreign policy, with a special emphasis on transatlantic relations.
Áron Szele joined the CENS as a research assistant in November of 2010. His previous training is in the field of comparative social history of Eastern and Central Europe. After receiving his B.A. from the Faculty of History of the University of Bucharest, he gained an M.A. in comparative Hungarian-Romanian history from the Department of History of the CEU. He is currently working on a Ph.D. thesis concerning the right-wing populist movements of contemporary Hungary. His main themes of interest and expertise include entangled histories and relationships of Hungary and its neighbors, populist and right-wing radical movements, and minority issues in East-Central Europe. He is a fluent speaker of Hungarian, Romanian, and English and intermediate in French and Italian.
Zselyke Tofalvi after graduating from Faculty of Political Science and Public Administration, Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania, has worked for the President's Office of the Hungarian minority party in Romania, the Democratic Alliance of Hungarians in Romania. Afterwards, she received her Master's degree in Public Policy from Corvinus University of Budapest. Sha has been working for CENS since its establishment in 2005. Her research topic mainly focuses on ethnic and national minorities of the Central and Eastern European Region.
Zsuzsanna Végh joined the Center for EU Enlargement Studies as a research assistant in August 2012. Her work focuses on the Visegrad cooperation and the European Union’s relations with its Eastern neighbourhood. Her areas of academic interest also include conflicts and conflict resolution in the post-Soviet space.
