Alba Çela is the Executive Director and the Head of the European Program at the Albanian Institute for International Studies. She holds a BA in Political Science and International Relations from the American University in Bulgaria, where she graduated with Magna Cum Laude honours, as well as an MA in Nationalism Studies from the Central European University in Budapest, for which she was awarded a Distinction. During her studies, she was a recipient of the prestigious John Gunn scholarship at the University of Washington and Lee in Virginia. Today her main areas of research are democratisation, political parties, national identity, and European integration. She has previously taught as an associate professor of Political Science and Economics at two private universities in Tirana. Alba Çela currently works as an independent expert in research, monitoring and evaluation, and advocacy projects for several international donors and organisations, such as Open Society Foundation for Albania, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and BIRN.