Dr. Maria Ayuk focuses on peace and security related issues in Africa. She holds a Ph.D.in Global Studies from the University of Leipzig, Germany, where she focused on the political economy of peacebuilding in Africa, examining the Nigerian Government Amnesty Programme in the Niger Delta region. She is a member of the Research Academy Leipzig and the DAAD Africa Alumni Network. She is an accredited member of the FemWise-Africa (Network of African Women in Conflict Prevention and Mediation) under the Peace and Security Architecture at the African Union Commission. Previously, she worked as a Consultant with the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Bonn for the initiative on Sustainability, Stability, and Security in Africa ("3S" Initiative). Before joining CASSIS, Dr. Maria Ayuk served as a research fellow with the Africa Center for Transregional Research, Arnold Bergstraesser Institute, the University of Freiburg, where she conducted her research on Racism in Germany. She also worked as a Research Assistant under Professor Dr. Andreas Mehler at the Arnold-Bergstraesser-Institute, the University of Freiburg, to organize a Cameroon conference on the "Legacies for Violence and Prospects for Peace in Cameroon".

Peace and Security | Security Sector Reform | Political economy in Afrika | Climate change | Migration

• Sustainability, Stability and Security in Africa: Key Findings in the Sahel, University of Bonn, 2022
• The Political Economy of the Nigerian Government Amnesty Program in the Niger Delta Region, 2009 – 2018. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Leipzig, 2020
• J. Ndumbe Anyu and M. Enow Ayuk. The Role played by Diplomacy in the Resolution of the Bakassi Conflict. International Journal of Social Science and Economic Research, Vol.1, Issue.10, 2016
• Security Sector Reforms and its Implications on Cameroon. UPeace Africa Policy Series Vol.2. No.1.March 2015
• Rethinking Security Threats in the Central African Region: A Case of the Republic of Cameroon. UPeace Africa Monograph, Vol. 2. No. 2. September 2015

• Research Project "A Comparative Analysis of the Initiative for Sustainability, Stability and Security in Africa (3S Initiative) and the Euro-African Dialogue on Migration"
  The focus of this research is on a comparative analysis between the "3S" initiative and the "Euro-African Dialogue on Migration" to show to what extent these initiatives have addressed climate-related security risks as well as migration and how they have influenced cooperation between Europe and Africa.
• Dialogue series „Consequences of climate change in Africa"