Our Team
This transnational research project partnership comprises four Principal Investigators from four participating T-AP participating countries from both sides of the Atlantic.
Thomas Bryer, University of Central Florida, United States
​Victoria Foster, Edge Hill University, United Kingdom
Mebs Kanji, Concordia University, Canada
Piotr Modzelewski, University of Warsaw, Poland
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Scroll down or click on the country flag to read more about each country's team members.
United States
Dr. Thomas Bryer
Lead Principal Investigator
University of Central Florida
Prof. Bryer is the team leader for this project and Principal Investigator for the United States.
His research and teaching focuses on citizen participation and collaborative governance, ultimately asking: how can we design institutions to enable stronger, more civically healthy communities? He has worked at the University of Central Florida since 2007, after completing his PhD from the University of Southern California.
He has published eight books, including Poor Participation: Fighting the Wars on Poverty and Impoverished Citizenship, Citizenship and Ethics, Handbook of Theories of Public Administration and Management, and Promoting Civic Health through University-Community Partnerships.
He has served as a Fulbright Scholar in Lithuania and Russia, and he maintains affiliations with universities in the United Kingdom, Lithuania, and South Africa.
Dr. Sofia Prysmakova
Co-Principal Investigator
Kennesaw State University
Dr. Sofia Prysmakova is an Assistant Professor of Public Administration at Kennesaw State University. She earned a Ph.D. in Public Affairs from the University of Central Florida, where she continues to serve as a Visiting Professor of Community-Engaged Scholarship.
For almost ten years, she has been working on a wide range of domestic and international research projects that explore how public service delivery can be enhanced through the use of strategic partnerships and collaborative governance to assist vulnerable communities in times of crises, which include natural, manmade disasters and hybrid crises.
Dr. Prysmakova has co-authored several applied research reports for community partners and publications in the areas of collaborative governance, crisis and emergency management, forced migration, and anti-poverty programs, including a book Poor Participation: Fighting the Wars on Poverty and Impoverished Citizenship with Thomas Bryer.
United Kingdom
Dr. Victoria Foster
​Principal Investigator
Edge Hill University
Dr. Foster is Principal Investigator for the United Kingdom.
She is Senior External Engagement Fellow at Edge Hill University, a role which involves acting as a key leader and advisor in the embedding of external engagement, knowledge exchange and value creation activities into the University’s research activities. Victoria is also Director of the Centre for Social Responsibility (CSR), a cross-faculty research and knowledge exchange initiative at Edge Hill University that is committed to generating opportunities for cross-sector collaboration and co-operation, and modelling and sharing good practice. Victoria has a particular interest in arts-based methodologies underpinned by feminist epistemology and her book, Collaborative Arts-based Research for Social Justice, provides a rationale for employing this approach in community settings.
Victoria was the recipient of an ESRC CASE award for her doctoral research and an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellowship. She has worked on large scale NIHR-funded research as well as a wide range of smaller projects. She is currently Co-Investigator on the one-year AHRC-funded project, ‘Active and Creative Communities Arts Development: Social Prescribing, Sustainable Strategic Planning and Breaking Down Barriers across Sectors in North Lanarkshire’. This collaborative knowledge exchange project is led by Dr Marisa de Andrade at the University of Edinburgh and involves eight local, regional and national multi-sectoral partners in developing a joined-up arts strategy for the region.
Victoria is Visiting Professor of Community-Engaged Scholarship at the University of Central Florida Downtown.
Dr. Jo Crotty
Co-Principal Investigator
University of Sunderland
Professor Crotty is the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research and Global Engagement at the University of Sunderland, UK. She has nearly 30 years of experience in employing qualitative techniques to study social phenomena – predominantly in the former Soviet Union, but also extending to the UK and Eastern Europe. She has authored over 100 scholarly articles, conference papers, and book chapters and has secured several grants from the British Academy and the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). She currently also serves on the review board of Voluntary Sector Review and is a member of the ESRC review college.
In the latter part of her career, Crotty’s mission is to contribute to pluralising the academic landscape by enabling researchers from diverse backgrounds and nationalities to research social phenomena across different contexts, broadening our collective knowledge and shaping conceptual frameworks accordingly.
Dr. Jacob Obodai
Post-Doc
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Dr. Jacob Obodai has a broad interest in challenges at the intersections of development and environment at multiple scales. He enjoys conducting multi-and interdisciplinary research and using quantitative, qualitative, and Remote Sensing/GIS methodologies to provide practical solutions. His research focuses broadly on food security, natural resource governance, the dynamics of land use and land cover changes, and environmental management.
Dr. Obodai has participated in several action research and evaluation projects for a variety of local and international organisations, including USAID, the Global Health and Development Centre at Boston University, the Human Sciences Research Council, the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Public Health Department of KNUST.
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Canada
Dr. Mebs Kanji
​Principal Investigator
Concordia University
Dr. Kanji is Principal Investigator for Canada.
He is Associate Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Concordia University.
His research focuses on Canadian politics, comparative politics, political values, social cohesion, political support, and democratic governance.
In his various roles, including as founder and Director of the Workshops on Social Science Research, Dr. Kanji has led a series of influential research initiatives and knowledge dissemination activities as well as impactful collaborations with politicians, experts, and practitioners. This includes a number of journal publications and volumes such as Assessing the State of Canadian Democracy and The Canadian Election Studies: Assessing Four Decades of Influence. Dr. Kanji has secured and managed several major research grants and is responsible for the creation and expansion of the Political Communities Survey Project (PCSP), now in its fifth major wave of cross-national data collection.
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Dr. Kerry Tannahill
Associate Researcher
Dr. Tannahill is Director of the KiND Institute and Associate Researcher on the Adaptive Democracy Project. She is also co-lead on the Political Communities Survey Project (PCSP).
Dr. Tannahill has collaborated on a number of journal articles, book chapters, and research presentations and has worked closely with politicians, analysts, experts, and academics delivering interdisciplinary educational opportunities in research methodology, governance, and public policy.
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Her research focuses on Canadian and comparative political and democratic support, value diversity, and identity. Her dissertation, titled Democracy's Challenges: A Comprehensive Analysis of Political Support in Quebec and Canada, provides a detailed exploration of political support dynamics using extensive cross-wave PCSP survey data complemented by other prominent national and international surveys.
Sophie Courchesne
Research Assistant
Concordia University
Sophie Courchesne is a Master's candidate in the Department of Political Science, Concordia University, Montreal.
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Her research focuses on Canadian politics, more specifically political support.
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Poland
Dr. Piotr Modzelewski
​Principal Investigator
University of Warsaw
Dr. Modzelewski is Principal Investigator for Poland.
He is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw.
His main areas of research include efficiency analysis, performance management, inter-organizational relations, collaboration and public service delivery networks. He is implementing many research and commercial projects in the public and private sectors.
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Dr. Tomasz Gajderowicz
Researcher
University of Warsaw
Tomasz Gajderowicz is a policy advisor in the field of education and the labor market.
Dr. Gajderowicz specializes in data science methods for uncovering incentives, that drive educational and professional decisions. He elaborated the framework of the implementation of modern microeconometric techniques in research on preferences and assessments.
He holds a Ph.D. in economic sciences, he works as a European Commission expert, World Bank, and ETEC consultant and holds the position of Research Director in Evidence Institute and assistant professor at the University of Warsaw. He is experienced in a number of international projects and workshops on educational data analysis and policy. He is the author of many publications in the field of assessment analysis and transition from education to the labor market.