Dr Russell Gasser

With a PhD thesis on “Technology for Landmine Clearance”, Mr. Russell Gasser has over fifteen years of experience in mine action, as well as seven years in humanitarian development and three years in small arms and light weapons proliferation. After working for the EC in Brussels on landmine action, he started a consultancy company specialising in evidence-based evaluation. In 2013 he joined the Geneva International Centre for Humanitarian Demining as Advisor on Results-based and Quality Management, and later worked for the Small Arms Survey then returned to consultancy.  His current focus includes evaluation in complex and fragile environments, and teaching  RBM and In 2007 he conducted the Ukraine part of the Strategic Evaluation of Netherlands Government funding for Mine Action 1996-2006). He has completed both the introductory and advanced GICHD online courses in EORE. He can be contacted on mail@resultsbased.org


Ms Welmoet Wels  MA/LLM

Working on her PhD in International Law and university lecturer in that field, Ms. Welmoet Wels has over seven years of experience working on human rights and protection issues in (post-) conflict countries in Africa and seven years as an independent consultant. In the latter capacity, she works on training assignments, training curriculum development, and programme reviews for various IOs and NGOs. She assisted in the drafting of a proposal for a large governmental funding programme for a major de-mining NGO, and with Dr Keeley and Dr Gasser did the evaluation of the Dutch government’s mine action programme. As a researcher, her experience tends to qualitative research, desk reviews, and writing and editing. She has field experience with the UN and the Dutch MFA in South Sudan, Mali, DRC and Lebanon. Particularly, she worked in DRC in coordination with mine action organisations, and served for almost a year in the civil war in South Sudan. Ms Wels is a reserve officer in the Dutch Army as a specialist in international law. She can be contacted on welmoetwels@gmail.com

Yuliia Chykolba 

Ms. Yuliia Chykolba has more than five years of experience in Explosive Ordnance Risk Education with the Danish Refugee Council, UNMAS, ICRC and The HALO Trust in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Ukraine. Starting as an EORE trainer in eastern Ukraine in 2016, she has a profound understanding of the EORE programme nuances both on the operational and strategic levels. Ms. Yuliia Chykolba set up the weapon contamination risk management activity of the ICRC in Syria, including EO risk mitigation projects. Recently she scaled up the EORE programme of the HALO Trust in Ukraine four times both in scope and geographically. She set up the mentoring capacity-building project for the national actors, including State Emergency Services, national NGOs and volunteer networks. Created an emergency online course on the promotion of the culture of safe behaviour in the presence of weapon contamination with EdCamp – the largest national educational NGO. She is an alumna of the FCDO Chevening programme and Department of War Studies, King’s College London with a dissertation focused on the Humanitarian Mine Action system in Ukraine before the Russian full-scale invasion in 2022. Co-host of the Ukrainian series of the Trumanitarian podcast exploring challenges of the aid response in Ukraine. Currently, she is a stakeholder management consultant with the Centre for Information Resilience. She can be contacted on yuliya.chykolba@gmail.com

Ariane Elmas

As a manager of several projects in different development and humanitarian fields, and a holder of a Master in International Affairs, Ariane Elmas offers a proven track record of experience and knowledge in humanitarian affairs.

As an advisor to the Lebanese Armed Forces’ Lebanon Mine Action Center between 2017 and 2021, she provided institutional strengthening support thereby contributing to increasing funding for Mine Action. In addition, she has developed different humanitarian projects and successfully raised funds from different donors including EU, UK, Norway and the Netherlands. Lately, she has been engaging in monitoring and evaluation of Mine Action Programs and projects.

Ariane is fluent in English, Arabic and French. Her experience includes proposal development, fundraising, project management, monitoring reporting and evaluation. She can be contacted on: arianeelmas@gmail.com

Maria Jaramillo Moscoso

Ms Maria Jaramillo has more than 15 years of experience working in Humanitarian Mine Action and holds a postgraduate course in Conflict Resolution and International Relations as well as a LLM in Law in Development. She started her career in Mine Action as an Operations Officer for The HALO Trust in Colombia where she played a key role setting up the programme. Maria then worked for the Colombian Mine Action Authority, leading the team that set up the legal and operational framework that allowed humanitarian mine clearance to commence in the country. Since leaving the Colombian Mine Action Authority, she has worked with HI, Danish Refugee Council and UNMAS in Ukraine, Iraq, Myanmar, Sudan and Mali.

Maria recently obtained her EOD Level 3+ certification and has extensive experience in capacity building, development and delivery of training packages for EORE and NTS, monitoring and project management amongst others. She is fluent in Spanish and English and can be contacted on maria.jaramillo.moscoso@gmail.com