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Advanced Certificate in Romani Studies Program Current Students:

Veronika Balogh

Noelia Barbero, Sociology and Social Anthropology 2-year-program (MA)

Noelia comes Argentina, where she studied Social Anthropology at the University of Buenos Aires. She later moved to Italy and completed a BA in Global Humanities at Sapienza University of Rome, with a dissertation on the intersections between LGBT and Roma activism.
She currently works at a movement lawyering Dutch NGO, bringing anti-oppressive feminist practices to HR. She is interested in politically committed research, international solidarity, the intersections of sexuality and ethnicity, representation politics, and the power of artivism. Her MA research will look into the usage of art-based resistance in the Balkans by LGBT+ Roma. 

Anca Birnoiu, 

Sociology and Social Anthropology, 2YMA (Year 2)

Anca is a graduate student at the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Central European University, with a degree in Political Science from the Babeș-Bolyai University. She is an interdisciplinary researcher, having worked on both historical and contemporary fields. Her BA dissertation focused on labor unions, class consciousness and precarity of coal miners in her hometown, Motru. Her MA dissertation focuses on the deeper histories of the formation of capitalism in Romania and pays homage to the long history of slavery of the Roma. This led her to questions of social reproduction of migrant labor, and racialization and precarization of labor, which she aims to study as my PhD dissertation.
As a Marxist, Anca is interested in the fields of precarious labor, racial capitalism, migration, and social reproduction, which are close to her personal background. She recently co-edited a volume on the social and economical transformations in Romania between 2014 and 2025, where she co-wrote a chapter on the political economy of poverty. 

Helena Djablikova, Human Rights Studies 1-year program (MA)

Helena is from Czechia and just recently joined CEU. She has a background in education: with a bachelor’s degree in French Philology and a master's degree in Teaching French, she has been working as a language teacher (French, English, and Czech) for the past 6 years.

 Helena is interested in both historical human rights (mainly the fight for civil and political rights in Czechoslovakia in the late 1970s) and current human rights issues. Professionally, her goal is to work on more inclusive educational policies and on equal study opportunities for all.
Lirak Domi, MA in Political Science (2-year program)
Lirak is originally from Kosovo and previously completed a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations at the University of Pécs in Hungary. His current research examines how national identity is constructed and maintained within the Kosovo-Albanian diaspora, with a comparative focus on communities in Germany, the United States, and Australia.
Recognizing the limited exposure to Roma studies in his prior education, Lirak decided to pursue the Advanced Certificate in Romani Studies in order to develop a more nuanced understanding of Roma history, social exclusion, and minority politics in Europe. His broader academic interests include political history, nationalism, migration, diaspora politics, and minority inclusion.

Hanna Horányi, Nationalism Studies (2-year program)

Hanna is from Budapest, Hungary. She is currently pursuing a 2-year MA in Nationalism Studies. Her thesis focuses on the racialised application of Hungary's 2025 Act on the Protection of Local Self-Identity.
Outside her studies, Hanna is interested in literature and journalism. She is an Editorial Fellow at Hungarian Literature Online and her writings have been featured in magazines and news sites both in Hungary and abroad.

Tina Horvath, MA in Philosophy 1-year program


I am a Romani graduate student specializing in the intersections of philosophy and Romani Studies. My work is grounded in the philosophy of action, epistemology, and social and political philosophy, with particular focus on how epistemic marginalization and dehumanization shape the lived experiences of Romani people. I am currently completing a master’s degree in philosophy alongside an advanced certificate in Romani Studies, where I am exploring, generally speaking, how dominant epistemic frameworks often undermine Non-Western/Romani ways of knowing. My research aims to cast light on the structural mechanisms that silence marginalized communities and to challenge normative assumptions about knowledge. As such, I seek to advance our understanding of a full account of (moral) agency and ‘progress’. 

Róbert Kovács, MA in Historical Studies (2-year program) 

Born in Budapest, Hungary, I think of myself as Central European. I have completed my Bachelor’s degree at CEU, majoring in History and Nationalism Studies. I am interested in political thought, nationalism, and memory studies, and am currently working on the intellectual history of nationalism, regionalism, and kin-state politics in 1990s Hungary. 

I am truly grateful to the Romani Studies community for creating a wonderful education platform to discover the often-sidelined and silenced history, culture and politics of Europe’s largest ethnic minority group. My goal is to actively apply the knowledge I gain in this environment throughout my future career. 

Katinka Mari

Marko Pecak, Public Policy PhD (Year 2)

Marko Pecak is a PhD researcher in Public Policy at Central European University. His dissertation examined how discourses about collective trauma and past injustices shape institutional, social, and individual beliefs and attitudes. Along this research stream, Marko has co-authored “Between Antigypsyism and Human Rights Education”, a large-scale critical discourse analysis of Romani Holocaust representations in European textbooks, and is a co-author of a study of the overall representations of Roma in European history and social science curricula and textbooks. Focusing on critical, transdisciplinary, and mixed-method approaches, his research aims for holistic knowledge production on the construction of anti-Roma racism and how to challenge it. Additionally, Marko co-organizes the Romani Histories Seminar at the Prague Center for Romani Histories and is on the center’s executive board.

Stella Piskernik (np/they), MA in Critical Gender Studies (2-year program)

I am an Austrian graduate student currently pursuing an Advanced Certificate in Romani Studies, a field of knowledge that I understand as indispensable to working critically in any discipline. For the last few years, I have been active in queer feminist spaces in Vienna – an experience that has shaped and continues to shape my understanding of the importance for living theory in practice and bringing practice into theory. Working in care work has deeply impacted my political and academic work and showed me the necessity of making everyday life and education accessible to all. After finishing my Bachelor’s degree in Political Science, I lived on a farm in Carinthian while working at the Peršmanova domačija/Peršmanhof Museum of antifascist resistance, giving workshops and guided tours as well as building connections with the surrounding community. I speak German and English fluently, and am currently learning Slovenian.

Melissa Prošić, MA in International Public Affairs (2-year program)

Melissa is a Bosnian-American graduate student at CEU currently pursuing her Master’s degree in International Public Affairs. Before joining CEU, she obtained her Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from Webster Vienna Private University. Her current research focuses on how institutional frameworks, ethnic power-sharing, and external political influences shape national identity formation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and how these dynamics affect minority inclusion, particularly for Roma and Jewish communities. Melissa’s broader interests lie in humanitarianism, post-conflict reconstruction, and the politics of peace. She aims to contribute to future work within international organisations focusing on human rights, minority protection, and inclusive policymaking.

Carina Puiu, Gender Studies 2YMA (Year 1)

Carina is a CEU graduate student from Romania. She graduated with a Bachelor's degree in Political Science from Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, with a thesis on the legal changes regarding abortion and LGBTQ+ rights in Romania, Hungary and Poland and the far-right discourse surrounding them. She is currently part of the Gender Studies department at CEU. Her academic work deals with topics in the fields of gender studies and nationalism, focusing on Eastern Europe, and includes several related publications, while her current research also expands into the field of diaspora studies.

Evelina Rudenko Gender Studies 2YMA (Year 1)

Nik Schulz

Sara Franciska Szilagyi, Critical Gender Studies 2-year-program (MA)

Sára comes from Hungary. She is a first-year student in the Critical Gender Studies program at CEU.

Before starting her MA program at CEU, Sára completed an undergraduate degree in Psychology, and a master's in Developmental and Clinical Children's Psychology.

Sára currently works at an NGO that connects volunteers with children from disadvantaged backgrounds through mentoring. Her academic interests lie in intersectional feminist research.