Nevena Zhelyazkova is a post-doctoral researcher at the Chair of Governance and Regulation. Nevena's research is focusing on measuring and comparing the independence of regulatory agencies in the network industries. This research project is realized in cooperation with the OECD. In addition, Nevena is participating in the development of a MOOC on the topic of Political Economy of Regulation. Before joining the Chair in September 2015, Nevena completed her PhD in Public Policy and Policy Analysis at the Graduate School of Governance at Maastricht University, the Netherlands. Nevena's PhD research was in the area of social protection policy and was funded through a grant from the National Research Fund of Luxembourg (FNR). Nevena has also been a trainee at the European Commission in Brussels as part of the Blue Book Traineeship program and a Human Resources officer at Infosys Technologies in Bangalore, India. In addition to the PhD degree from Maastricht University, Nevena holds an MSc in Social Policy Analysis with great distinction (magna cum laude) from the IMPALLA program coordinated by KU Leuven and the University of Luxembourg and a BA with a major in Psychology (high honors) and a minor in Economics from Smith College, USA.