Katerina Tkacova is a research fellow in the Global Security Program: Contested Cross-border Spaces, Illicit Flows, and Order in the Contemporary World at the Blavatnik School of Government and a researcher at CONPEACE (From Conflict Actors to Architects of Peace) at the Pembroke College.

Katerina's research focuses on the dynamics of contemporary and historical armed conflicts, including the interaction between conflict actors, the geographic scope of conflict, and its impact on civilians. Her work combines visualisation techniques with GIS and other quantitative data analysis.

Katerina was previously a post-doctoral researcher in the Changing Character of Conflict Platform project. This project involved studying the changing conflict dynamics and their impact on individuals, communities, and societies. After that, she worked on the Network for Change project, where she engaged with stakeholders, including representatives of civil society, international community and academia, in Myanmar and the Horn of Africa. Her work in this project aimed to improve our collective understanding of the impact of conflict dynamics on civilians and identify "good practices" and future opportunities for cross-stakeholder collaboration.

Katerina was also a part of the Mapping the Thirty Years War project, building dynamic, digital visualisation of the impact of the Thirty Years War (1618-48), Europe’s most destructive conflict prior to the 20th century. 

Before joining academia, Katerina worked for Berkat, a Czech NGO supporting communities in Chechnya and Afghanistan, and InBaze, a community centre for migrants in Prague.

Katerina holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Essex.