Postgraduate Research Student Members

Indira Barykbayeva

Doctoral Researcher
School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham

Research interests: Gender and political representation, gender policy in Kazakhstan and Central Asia. 

Prior to the University of Nottingham, Indira combined work at the academy with work in the civil service of Kazakhstan. She was a Head of Trade Negotiations Division at the Ministry of Trade and Integration; Chief Expert of the Department of Foreign Trade Development at the Ministry of National Economy; Expert of the Department of Administration and Control at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Astana (Kazakhstan) and Assistant Council at the Embassy of Kazakhstan in Turkey, Ankara (Turkey).

She has also been a Projects Coordinator at "Penal Reform International in Central Asia" (NGO) in Astana (Kazakhstan) and Senior Lawyer at several LLPs in Astana (Kazakhstan).

Indira holds a LLM in Public International Law from the University of Leicester (UK) and BA in Jurisprudence from L.N.Gumilyov Eurasian National University, Faculty of Law, Astana (Kazakhstan).

Nora Leach

ESRC DTP PhD Candidate
School of Politics and International Relations, University of Nottingham

Research interests: public administration, politicisation of bureaucracy, islands of excellence, democratisation, europeanisation.

Nora holds a BA in Politics and International Relations (First Class), a MA in International Security and Terrorism (with Distinction) and a MA in Social Science Research (with Distinction) from the University of Nottingham. She is currently a PhD candidate in the School of Politics and International Relations. Her doctoral project seeks to investigate the impact of European Union (EU) integration on the professionalisation of bureaucratic elites in post-communist Europe. Her research is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Nora is fluent in English, Bulgarian, Russian and French and academically fluent in Spanish and Italian.