Dr Medinat Abdulazeez Malefakis is a Senior Lecturer at NADEL (Institute for Global Cooperation and Sustainable Development) at ETH Zurich, and Nigeria Country Lead the Global Survivors Fund.

She is an experienced academic and policy expert in terrorism, violent conflicts, humanitarian displacement, peacebuilding, as well as the intersection of digital technologies with all of the afore mentioned. Before NADEL and GSF, Medinat was an early career fellow at the Collegium Helveticum (ETH Zurich), conflict and humanitarian information analyst (West, East and Southern Africa) at the Norwegian Refugee Council, post-doctoral researcher at the Berlin Social Science Centre (WZB), research fellow with the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), and junior researcher at the Max Planck Institute.

Medinat is on the board of trustees for Saferworld, a member of the board of directors at Fairpicture, the board chair for Build Up, and a member of the advisory board for the Swiss Commission for Research Partnerships with Developing Countries (KFPE).