Yolande Bouka is a Research Associate for the Institute of Security Studies (ISS) in the Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis Division. Her expertise includes African politics and security, transitional justice, and conflict prevention. More specifically, she specializes on domestic and foreign policy dynamics in the Great Lakes Region and East Africa and how these dynamics impact stability in the region. She is also interested in the role of women in military institutions and non-state armed groups.

She has recently taken a leave from ISS to take up Fulbright Scholar Grant in Namibia to investigate the role of female combatants in the Namibian liberation struggle against South Africa. This grant is part of what she hopes to be a larger project on women’s agency in non-state armed groups. Yolande holds a doctoral degree in International Relations from American University’s School of International Service and a master’s degree in Diplomacy and International Relations from Seton Hall University.

Fun-fact: Recently, she took the youngest of her three children on a research trip and nursed the four-month old through most of her interviews with various political actors, including a former prime minister. The report of this field trip is forthcoming. #MotherhoodInterrupted