Kosta Barjaba serves as Chief of Staff to the Speaker of the Parliament of Albania since May 2018. He is a Member of the Academy of Sciences of Albania, since 2011. Professor Barjaba has held various governmental positions in Albania: serving as director of the Department of Migration for a term of five years (1997-2002); Chief of Staff to the Minister of Labor for a term of ten years (1998-2008), adviser to the Minister of Finance in 2005; and Senior Policy Adviser to the Minister of Health of the Republic of Albania during 2014-2017. From 1999-2008, Professor Barjaba represented Albania as a member of three Council of Europe committees on Migration, Social Cohesion and European Social Charter. Professor Barjaba has held several academic positions in Albania, serving as the founding rector of the University “Aleksander Moisiu”, Durrës (2005), dean of the Mediterranean University of Albania School of Political Sciences (2009-2012) and professor of Sociology and Public Policies at the European University of Tirana since 2013. He is also a board member of the Center of Interdisciplinary Studies on Migration at the University of Salento, Italy. Professor Barjaba periodically publishes on various academic journals in the United States and Europe. His areas of expertise include migration, poverty, social exclusion, unemployment, ethnic relations, and youth. Kosta Barjaba has published extensively on matters related to poverty and development. He earned a Bachelor degree in Political Sciences from the University of Tirana (1984), a Bachelor degree in Law from the University of Tirana (2000), PhD in Sociology from University of Tirana (1989), the academic title Professor (1999) and a Mid-Career Master in Public Administration from Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government (2005).