Dr Romina Istratii is Director of the Institute of Domestic Violence, Religion & Migration (IDVRM) and Research Fellow at the Institute for Christian Orthodox Studies (IOCS) in Cambridge. Until May 2025, she was UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and Lecturer in religion, international development and violence at the School of History, Religions and Philosophies at SOAS University of London and acted as co-chair of the SOAS Centre of World Christianity. Between 2020 and 2025, she acted as Principal Investigator of Project dldl/ ድልድል, a ~£1.8 research and innovation project funded by UKRI dedicated to developing culturally sensitive and faith-informed responses to domestic violence in Africa and Europe.

Dr Istratii has 15 years’ experience conducting and leading impact-oriented research and specialises in research and intervention responses to domestic violence and interconnected forms of violence in religious, ethnic minority and migrant communities in Africa and Europe. Dr Istratii has been at the forefront of decolonisation debates in international research and development, focusing on epistemological reflexivity, decolonial ethics and equitable collaboration models. She has published novel interdisciplinary research crossing development studies, religious studies, anthropology, gender-based violence studies and decolonisation studies with over 130 publications under her ORCID ID. Dr Istratii currently sits in the Team of Experts of the UK’s Civilian Stabilisation Unit for Preventing Sexual violence in Conflict and is a regular speaker on topics related to research ethics, decolonisation and international partnerships for ARMA, UKCDR, RLUK, UKRIO and other UK research bodies.