Paula Cristina Roque

Paula Cristina Roque is an author, researcher, and analyst with extensive expertise in human rights, security, and surveillance in Africa. She is the currently a board member of Intel Watch after serving as its Executive Director from 2024-2026 where she launched the media defense project, the elections, intelligence and tech project and the changing nature of regime repression project. She is also a Research Associate for the Centre for African Studies at the university of Oxford and has served as an advisor on Sub-Saharan Africa for the Crisis Management Initiative as well as a Senior Analyst for Southern Africa with the International Crisis Group (ICG).

Previously, she worked as a Senior External Advisor for the South Sudan-Centre for Strategic and Policy Studies and a Senior Researcher for the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). She has also served as the China in Africa Research Co-ordinator for the South African Institute for International Affairs (SAIA), as a journalist in West Africa and the United Kingdom, and in 2020 founded a non-profit organisation Changes for Humanity that operates across the global South funding transformative community projects. She is the author of two books published by Hurst: Governing in the Shadows:Angola’s Securitized State (2021) and Insurgent Nations: Rebel Rule in Angola and South Sudan (2024).

Paula holds a PhD in Development Studies from the University of Oxford, a MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics, and a BA in Social Anthropology from the Instituto Superior de Ciencias do Trabalho e da Empresa (ISCTE).