Welcome to our new interns!

Merethe is a Norwegian student in the second year of a master’s degree in International Relations at the Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Norwegian University of Life Sciences. She is originally from Bodø, Norway and completed her bachelor’s degree in Criminology and Politics at the University of Melbourne in Australia. In between her degrees, she worked a year for the police in Bodø, working with petitions for enforcement and volunteered as a language host to teach refugees Norwegian with Norwegian People’s Aid Bodø. During her master’s degree, she has engaged with the student democracy as program council representative and member of the faculty’s nomination committee, worked as the Editor in Chief for the NMBU Student Journal of Life Sciences, and as a Writing Advisor with the NMBU Writing Centre. Merethe’s interests include academic publishing, transnational crimes, policing, human rights, and women’s rights. She is currently writing her master thesis on the experience of policewomen in peace operations. 

“I was very interested to join the ICT4COP-center because its focus areas perfectly merge my educational background and research interests. The ICT4COP-project’s combined focus on the police, communities, and post-conflict settings sparked my curiosity, as it raises very interesting questions about the role and purpose of the police. The fact that the project is so interdisciplinary, combining unique perspectives to explain the complex dynamics taking place between the state and community level was also especially appealing to me. I’m so excited to work with Ingrid and Tyra this semester to develop the Center and to communicate more of the findings of the ICT4COP-project!” Merethe tells. 

Tyra is currently pursuing her master’s degree in International Relations at NMBU, where she is completing her final semester. She received her bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Management at the University of Exeter in the UK, with a regional focus on the Middle East and North Africa. After completing her studies in the UK, Tyra was an intern at the Norwegian Embassy in Riga for six months. The internship focused on the Baltic countries’ relationship to Russia, NATO operations in the Baltic region along the Russian border, and EU politics. Before starting her master’s degree, she volunteered as a teaching assistant at an English Medium School in Gujarat, India. As a part of her master’s degree, Tyra has interned at the U.S. Embassy in Oslo at the Public Affairs Section for six months and completed an exchange semester at American University in Washington, D.C. She is currently writing her master’s thesis on political engagement among youth with minority background in light of the Black Lives Matter movement in Norway.  

“I was very interested in joining the ICT4COP team because of the connection between the center’s objectives and my own academic interest in post-conflict environments, particularly in the South Asian region. I thought their goal of bridging the gap between public institutions and local communities that have experienced conflict has a valuable potential to rebuild the trust that is often broken in these communities, which I was very keen to be a part of. I’m really looking forward to working with Ingrid and Merethe on developing the center at NMBU and all the exciting projects we’ll be working on in the coming months!” Tyra says.