{"id":15,"date":"2015-11-05T19:58:47","date_gmt":"2015-11-05T19:58:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/iasfm.org\/archiving\/?page_id=15"},"modified":"2026-06-05T18:23:21","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T18:23:21","slug":"member-profiles","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/iasfm.org\/adfm\/member-profiles\/","title":{"rendered":"Member Profiles"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coordinators<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Dr Rumana Hashem.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Rumana is the current Coordinator, a founding co-convenor of the Working Group, and an executive member of IASFM responsible for Programme Affairs and Innovation. She is a political-sociologist and a feminist criminology educator, and a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Research on Migration, Refugees and Belonging<\/a> at the University of East London (UEL). Rumana specialises in interdisciplinary and qualitaitve research methods in cultural and social research in migration and gender harms, intersectional feminist pedagogy and decolonising criminology.\u00a0 Her research cross-cuts four interrelated areas, including lived experience in bordering and criminalisation of migrants, macro and micro-level analysis of gendered violence in forced-displacement and armed-conflict. She is an editorial board member of the Displaced Voices – A journal of Migration, Archives and Cultural Heritage.<\/p>\n

Her work coalesce around her interest in border struggles of women and young people from the global South. She is a Co-investigator of the Civic Engagement project <\/a>titled \u2018Democratic Access or Privileged Exclusion?<\/a> The research has served as a pilot project to engage with irregular migrants and local displaced communities in London who told their lived experiences and enabled the establishment of a Living Refugee Archive<\/a> through the recording of life histories.<\/p>\n

Rumana has a PhD in Gender and armed conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts in Bangladesh – from the University of East London, and a postgraduate Diploma in migration and gender from the University of Hannover. At UEL she co-teached undergraduate module in Politics and International Relations.\u00a0 Prior to this, she was a full-time lecturer at the University of Brighton and Nottignham Trent University where she taught on undergraduate and post-graduate sociology and criminology programmes. She also served as a full-time Research Fellow at the University of Nottingham and a part-time Research Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. Some of Rumana’s published works are available here<\/a> and here<\/a> .<\/p>\n

Rumana is currently based at the Centre for Refugees, Migration and Belonging at the University of East London.<\/p>\n

Contact: r.hashem@uel.ac.uk<\/a> , Twitter @DrRHashem<\/a><\/p>\n

Paul V. Dudman<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Paul Dudman is the convening co-ordinator of the Working Group for Archiving and Documentation of History of Forced Migration and Refugees (HFMR). He is currently serving as a Co-coordinator and Digital Head of the Working Group. He is the Archivist based within Library and Learning Services at the University of East London (UEL).\u00a0 Paul has been responsible for the Refugee Council Archive, alongside three other archives at UEL, since November 2002. He has over a decade\u2019s experience working within Higher Education archives and has postgraduate qualifications in Archives Administration (MSc.Econ) and Information and Library Studies (MSc.Econ).<\/p>\n

Prior to founding HFMR, Paul has developed a Living Refugee Archive through working on a Civic Engagement project<\/a>, entitled \u2018Democratic Access or Privileged Exclusion: Civic Engagement through the Preservation of and Access to Refugee Archives\u2019, at the University of East London. The project was built on his MA thesis and has engaged with refugee lived experience, unorthodox- history and oral narratives of refugees and migrants. Paul is now digitalising the archival materials and make the archive accessible to refugees and migrants community.<\/p>\n

Paul also runs three other blogs and websites, including Refugee Research Blog<\/a> and UEL Archives Portal<\/a> , aimed at open access to refugee and migration related materials. Paul is a member of a range of professional bodies including the Archives and Records Association, the International Council on Archives, the British Records Association and is a Chartered member of CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals.\u00a0 For further information, please view Paul\u2019s\u00a0 Full Profile<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Contact: p.v.dudman@uel.ac.uk<\/a> , Twitter:\u00a0 @paulvdudman<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

Organising Team Members<\/strong><\/h2>\n


\nDr Ayar Ata <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Ayar<\/a>Dr Ayar Ata is a freelance researcher and linguist working for Ministry of Justice in London. He joined the Working Group for Archiving and Documentation of History of Forced Migration and Refugees in July 2018. Ayar is an active member of Sustainability Research Group at London South Bank University and a member of imix-global dialogue based in London promoting positive communications on migration and refugee issues in Britain, and he is also serving as ExCom member of International Association for the Study of Forced Migration. He serves the Working Group as a blog commissioning author.<\/p>\n

Ayar, has first-hand refugee experience and settled in London in the beginning of the 1990s. Now describes himself a Kurdish Londoner and Ayar believes his formal and most informative steps towards his integration or active citizenship in London began when he completed his undergraduate study at SOAS, University of London in 1997.\u00a0 Ayar studied\u00a0 further and completed his postgraduate studies in social policy at Middlesex University in 2000 and later he studied forced migration and international human rights at University of East London (UEL) in 2009. Ayar was inspired by his experience at UEL and continued his dream study and gained his PhD in the same field at London South Bank University in April 2017.<\/p>\n

His PhD research is on transnational migration, integration, and identity: a study of Kurdish diaspora in London analyses the notion of history, cultural identity and the idea of home and belonging by considering how the Kurds view their own history (the past) and how they relate (at present) within their new home, that is London. In other words an analytical attempt has been made to understand a shifting position of the Kurds from victims in the region to active citizens in London or Kurdish Londoners.<\/p>\n

In the course of his research Ayar has also helped to establish a small voluntary group called Maheen Project in Croydon<\/a> south London. This project is supporting unaccompanied refugee children to settle successfully in London<\/p>\n

Contact: ayarata@ymail.com<\/a><\/p>\n


\nProf. Giorgia Don\u00e1<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Giorgia is Professor of Forced Migration and Refugee Studies at the University of East London, and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy in the UK. Her research focuses on forced migration and refugee movements, violence and society, child protection and psycho-social assistance, with a geographical focus on Central America and East Africa. She has held positions at the Oxford University\u2019s Refugee Studies Programme, the Child Studies Unit of University College Cork, Ireland, and the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Giorgia has undertaken consultancy work for UNICEF, governments, and non-governmental organisations, and her research has been funded by, amongst others, the European Community, the Leverhulme Trust, the UK Department for International Development and the UK Department of Health. Giorgia was awarded the Emerald Literati Network Awards for Excellence in 2012 and was the recipient of the Leverhulme Fellowship for \u2018Bystanders to Violence: Revisiting Genocide Narratives and Reconciliation Initiatives\u2019 (2008 -2010). She is currently member of the Management Committee of the European funded Cooperation for Science and Technology Action 1206 \u201cFemicide Across Europe\u2019 (2013-2017).<\/p>\n

Contact:\u00a0\u00a0 g.dona@uel.ac.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

Prof. Anita F\u00e1bos<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Anita F\u00e1bos is an anthropologist who has conducted research and outreach among refugees and other forced migrants in urban settings in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States. Her scholarship and practice pursues a number of interconnected themes in the area of forced migration and refugee studies: how people make and transform ethnic and racial boundaries and boundary markers, people\u2019s experiences of displacement and challenges to gender norms, historical shifts in citizenship and nationality laws, methods and ethics of research with hidden, vulnerable and mobile populations, transcultural social networks, and refugee narratives and representations.<\/p>\n

As the Director of the Forced Migration and Refugee Studies program at the American University in Cairo, and later Programme Coordinator for the graduate program in Refugee Studies at the University of East London, F\u00e1bos has been involved in developing integrated teaching, research, and outreach programs that have incorporated refugee and forced migrant perspectives into collaborative work with scholars, practitioners, refugee organizations, policy makers, and international organizations. At Clark University, students in her classes have carried out community-based projects that have investigated refugee participation in community development initiatives, refugee access to higher education, and refugee livelihoods in Worcester.<\/p>\n

Contact: afabos@clarku.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

Tolu Kadri<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Tolu Kadri is in the final year of the Global Urban Studies PhD program at Rutgers University-Newark. Tolu\u2019s research examines the process and experience of forced migration in Cape Town, South Africa using an interdisciplinary approach (urban geography, migration studies, and mobilities). A native of Newark, Tolu completed her undergraduate studies at Princeton University (A.B., Anthropology) and received her Master’s of Public Health from Rutgers University. Prior to returning for her doctoral studies, Tolu worked as a program manager for the city of Newark’s workforce development board and as a grant manager for charter schools in Newark and Trenton, New Jersey.<\/p>\n

Contact:to.lu@rutgers.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Brittany Lauren-Wheeler<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Brittany is final year a PhD student in the Graduate School of Geography at Clark University. Her work lies at the intersection of legal and moral geographies as they relate to environmental migration, and she is especially concerned with the role that the past plays in the way we define, legislate, and grant rights and recognition in the present. Previously, she studied forced migration at the University of the Witwatersrand (within the African Centre for Migration & Society), where she earned an MA with a project on the repatriation of human remains over borders in South Africa and the United States. Following this, Brittany worked as the Repatriation Specialist at the Field Museum of Natural History. Brittany also (co-)coordinated the Emerging Scholars and Practitioners on Migration Issues Network (ESPMI) for a number of years, bringing scholars and practitioners into meaningful dialogue, and leading the production of a multi-disciplinary, open-access, peer-reviewed e-journal, the Refugee Review<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Within the Working Group, Brittany is a publication and fundraising team member, and co-researcher in the ADHFMR Hub.<\/p>\n

Contact: Brittany.lauren.wheeler@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr Nithya Rajan<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Nithya Rajan is a co-researcher in ADHFMR hub and a co-worker at social media and public engagement team. She was\u00a0 awarded a PhD from the Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies department at the University of Minnesota. Her research focuses on the labour experiences of refugee women in contemporary India and seeks to understand how refugee women, particularly Muslim refugee women, undertake complex negotiations and overcoming legal, logistical, and cultural obstacles and restrictions to engage in labour.<\/p>\n

Her research interests include refugee policy in the Global South, refugee livelihoods and self-reliance intervention, refugee women’s experiences, transnational\/postcolonial feminist theory, subaltern studies.<\/p>\n

Further details about Nithya\u2019s work can be found here: https:\/\/apps.cla.umn.edu\/directory\/profiles\/raja0145?search_results_referer_url=%2Fdirectory%2Fresults%3Fq%3DImmigration<\/a><\/p>\n

Contact: raja0145@umn.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr Veronica Saba<\/strong> has a PhD in the anthropology of migration process from the University of Trieste, Department of Humanities. Her research focuses on refugee women’s experiences of violence and agency through their migratory route. Through a gender-sensitive and feminist ethnographic approach, her work tries to gather their narratives, highlighting their strategies to overcome violence, discrimination and difficulties as women in migration.<\/p>\n

Her main interests are about feminist causes, migrations, asylum seeking, decolonial\/postcolonial approaches within feminist theory and practice, intersectionality. She\u2019s also taking part in the Italian feminist and anti-racist movement, and active member of Chayn Italy<\/a>,<\/u> an online volunteer network addressing gender-based violence by creating intersectional survivor-led resources online.<\/p>\n

Contacts: veronica.saba@phd.units.it<\/a> ; veronica.saba87@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Prof. Shailja Sharma<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shailja Sharma is an Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences at DePaul University, Chicago. She directs the M.S. in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies and is an Associate Professor of International Studies. Her books include New Cosmpolitanisms: South Asians in the United States<\/em> (Stanford, 2006) and Postcolonial Minorities in Britain and France<\/em> (forthcoming, Manchester University Press). Her areas of research include migration, integration, and citizenship, as well as South Asian history.<\/p>\n

Contact: ssharma@depaul.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr. Mirjam Twigt <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Mirjam Twigt is a Fellow at the Council for British Research in the Levant (CBRL), based at the British Institute of Amman. \u00a0She serves the Working Group as a media and public engagement team member. Mirjam is an anthropologist, specialised in media-use by and for forced migrants.\u00a0 She has recently obtained her PhD from the School of Media, Communication and Sociology at the University of Leicester. Her PhD-thesis \u201cThe Mediation of Prolonged Displacement in the Everyday Iraqi Refugee Household in Jordan\u201d drew upon ethnographic research and considered the interplay between living in prolonged legal and social uncertainty and media-use. She argues that conflict-affected migrants should be considered as digital connected but also points to the importance for caution for a too celebratory stance towards the \u2018newness\u2019 of digital connections and innovation. Online and offline interpretations of uncertainty in the present occur in reference to the past which includes one\u2019s (prior) socio-historical positioning and in continuation of (neo)colonial, capitalist and patriarchal entanglements.<\/p>\n

Mirjam has been awarded a fellowship at the Council for British Research in the Levant to further explore how refugees\u2019 interpretations of humanitarian aid are influenced by increased affordability and availability of ICTs (information and communication technologies). They do not necessarily give people voice, and can actually further map into and aggravate already existing inequalities. I further explore if and how humanitarian practitioners can apply bottom-up approaches that more closely align with people\u2019s subjectivities and there already existing media practices. She will also provide workshops on feminist and decolonising approaches to forced migration research at the Displaced Persons and Forced Migration Centre based at Yarmouk University, Irbid Jordan.<\/p>\n

Mirjam Twigt holds an MA in Medical Anthropology from the University of Amsterdam and a MSc in International Development Studies with a focus on Humanitarian aid, conducted at Wageningen University. She previously worked on issues relating to (il)legalised migration in Egypt, The Netherlands and Jordan.<\/p>\n

Contact: Mirjam.twigt@gmail.com<\/a> , Twitter @MirjamTwigt<\/a><\/p>\n

Dr Amadu Wurie Khan
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

Amadu Khan serves the Working Group as a publication and editorial team member. Amadu Khan is a career human rights activist, journalist and refugee academic living in the UK. His research portfolios, which include a PhD study, are in forced migration, citizenship and the news media. He is interested in forced migrants\u2019 personal \u2018lived\u2019 experiences and stories of belonging, identity and integration, and how these are shaped by government policies and news media coverage. His human rights journalism include serving as the first ever editor of the Exiled Journalists\u2019 News \u2013 UK and have contributed expert opinion on asylum-seeking migration, human rights and cultural diversity to various media outlets including BBC Newsnight, Cork FM96, the African Courier, the Scotsman and the Sunday Herald. He has also held research, editorial and capacity-building\/training consultancies with international NGO\u2019s including Amnesty International, Article 19, the then World Development Movement, and with the UK Department for International Development (DFID). He is a founding member of the International Commission on Survivor Centered Disaster Recovery (ICSCDR), where his special focus is on \u2018survivor\u2019 ethnography in forced migration.<\/p>\n

Email: pawurie@gmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Additional Members <\/strong><\/h2>\n

Agata Blaszczyk <\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr Agata is a lecturer in Polish language and museum studies in London.\u00a0 Contact: caucor@hotmail.com<\/p>\n

Biswajit Mohanty D.V.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Biswajit is a researcher in the studies of forced-migration, currently based in the Calcutta Research Institute, India. He is a member of IASFM for nearly a decade. His current research interests are in the area of Rohingya refugee crisis and forced-migration in South Asia.<\/p>\n

Farah Salka<\/strong><\/p>\n

Farah is an anti-racism activist based in Lebanon.\u00a0 Contact: farah@armlebanon.org<\/p>\n

Prof. Laura Madokoro<\/strong><\/p>\n

Laura Madokoro is a historian and Associate Professor in the Department of History at Carleton University. She is the author of\u00a0Elusive Refuge: Chinese Migrants in the Cold War<\/em>\u00a0(Harvard, 2016) and co-editor of\u00a0Dominion of Race: Rethinking Canada\u2019s International History<\/em>\u00a0(UBC, 2017). A former archivist at Library and Archives Canada, her current research focuses on the history of sanctuary.<\/p>\n

Contact: laura.madokoro@mcgill.ca<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Coordinators Dr Rumana Hashem. Rumana is the current Coordinator, a founding co-convenor of the Working Group, and an executive member of IASFM responsible for Programme Affairs and Innovation. She is a political-sociologist and a feminist criminology educator, and a Post-doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Research on Migration, Refugees and Belonging at the University of East London (UEL). Rumana specialises in interdisciplinary and qualitaitve research methods in cultural and social research in migration and gender…
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