Shanti is an Analyst at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. She works on conflict sensitivity and human rights issues in Libya and contributes to the Global Initiative’s research on the political economy of illicit markets in North Africa and the Sahel.

Before joining the GI, Shanti worked for various German research-institutes, such as the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Politics at the Freie Universität Berlin and the Chair for Digital Democracy at the European New School for Digital Studies. More recently, she interned at the EU Delegation in Tunis, working on security and migration programs.Shanti has specialized in human rights and gender-specific issues within EU foreign and security policies, and particularly in the context of euro-Mediterranean relations. Critical perspectives on counterterrorism, the prevention of violent extremism, migration and border-control policies have thereby been at the center of her work.

She holds two MA degrees, one in International Security and Middle Eastern Studies from SciencesPo Paris and one in Political Science from the Freie Universität Berlin. She also holds a double BA degree in Social and Political science from the European Campus of SciencesPo Paris in Nancy and the Freie Universität Berlin. She is fluent in Italian, German, English and French, and speaks conversational Spanish and Arabic (Tunisian dialect).