Dr. Rumyana van Ark (née Grozdanova) is a Senior Researcher in (Counter-)Terrorism and Human Rights at the T.M.C. Asser Institute of the University of Amsterdam. She is a senior member and coordinator of the Implementing Partner Team on a range of GCTF Initiatives including the US and Norway led Initiative on racially and ethnically motivated violent extremism and the US and UK led Initiative on countering UAS. In 2021, she was part of the consortium team of experts within the European Commission funded Radicalisation Awareness Network (RAN) as well as part of the team evaluating the operation of EU Directive 2017/541 on Combatting Terrorism. She is currently a member of the Advisory Board of the PREPARE Project (https://prepare-project.eu/). She is also a Member of the Editorial Board and the case note editor for the ECHR Law Review. 

Twitter: @DrRumyanavanArk

Background

Between September 2014 and April 2018, Rumyana was a Lecturer (the UK equivalent of an Assistant Professor) in the University of Liverpool Law School where she taught and coordinated two research-led Year 3 undergraduate courses (Security, Conflict and the Law and Introduction to the Law of the ECHR) and a core LLM module on International Peace and Security. She also coordinated all the Year 3 undergraduate dissertation modules. During the 2015/2016 academic year, she was nominated for the LawCareers.Net Lecturer of the Year Award. During her PhD studies in Durham Law School, Rumyana was a Tutor in European Constitutional Law. She is also holds a Certificate in Professional Studies in Learning and Teaching in Higher Education.

Research Interests

Her general research interests include international and European human rights, terrorism, counter-terrorism and the rule of law, states of emergency, international law and legal theory. She is particularly interested in the impact of domestic and international counter-terrorism measures and national security policies on the individual, the rule of law and state accountability. More specifically, her research explores how the relationship between the individual (terror suspect) and the state is altered following acts of terrorism and the broader societal and legal implications. Her academic and professional experience on this topic spans over 7 years. Her first peer-reviewed works were published in 2015. Since then, her work has been published in various academic and professional journals, as part of edited book collections and within governmental reports. She is currently examining how children are affected, directly and indirectly, by immigration and counter-terrorism measures imposed on their parents. She is also researching how the increasing digitilisation/cyberfication of counter-terrorism policies and practices is changing the perceptions of personality. She is currently co-authoring a book on ‘Children’s Rights, ‘Foreign Fighters’ and Counter-Terrorism: The Children of Nowhere’ to be published within the Elgar Studies in Human Rights collection in late 2023.