Scholars of Excellence Workshop – The global governance of migration: What role for the research community?

Thomas Lacroix is CNRS Director of research in geography. He has held research positions at the Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies (University of Liège), the Centre Jacques Berque (Rabat), the Centre for Research in Ethnic Relation (University of Warwick), the International Migration Institute (Oxford University), Migrinter (University of Poitiers) and the Maison Française of Oxford. He regularly teaches at the master level at Sciences Po, Oxford University, the University of Poitiers and the University St Joseph in Beyrouth. Thomas is associate editor of Migration Studies, editor of the series "Migrations" at the Presses Universitaires François Rabelais and sits on the editorial board of Migration and Development (Routledge). He is fellow of the Institut Convergence Migrations in Paris and research associate at Migrinter, the Maison Française of Oxford and the Kellogg College of Oxford.

Anna Triandafyllidou holds the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration at TMU. In 2023, she took on the additional role of Scientific Director for a new $98.6 million project, Bridging Divides, awarded to Toronto Metropolitan University by the Government of Canada through the Canada First Research Excellence Fund. Prior to joining the university, Anna was based at the European University Institute, where she held a Robert Schuman Chair on Global Pluralism. She is Editor of the Journal of Immigrant & Refugee Studies, Chair of the IMISCOE Editorial Committee and member of the IMISCOE Board of Directors.

Harald Bauder is Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies and the Graduate Program in Immigration and Settlement Studies. He is the former founding Academic Director of the Toronto Metropolitan Centre for Immigration and Settlement and served as the Director of the Graduate Program of Immigration and Settlement Studies at TMU. Currently, he is the director of the international partnership project Urban Sanctuary, Migrant Solidarity and Hospitality in Global Perspective, which involves dozens of academic research and practitioners in Africa, Europe, Latin America, and North America.

Flore Gubert is currently a senior researcher at the French Institute of Research for Development (IRD), and has been assigned the role as a research economist at DIAL, an IRD / University Paris-Dauphine research center on development economics and international Economics in Paris. She is also an affiliate member of Paris School of Economics. Flore received her PhD in Development Economics from Université Clermont-Ferrand. She has published numerous articles on the topic in international journals and has co-edited a book on the political impact of migration in African source countries. Her research primarily focuses on migration related issues, with a strong focus on the migration and development nexus in Western Africa.

Virginie Guiraudon is a Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) research director at the Sciences Po Center for European and Comparative studies in Paris. Her research focuses include the comparative politics of immigration, citizenship and anti-discrimination policies as well as the drivers and effects of the Europeanization of immigration, asylum and border policies. Virginie has served as a Marie Curie professor at the EUI and visiting professor and scholar in various universities (Princeton, UCLA, Doshisha University in Kyoto, the CEPC in Madrid). She received her doctoral degree from Harvard University.

Florita Gunasekara is an urban policy practitioner. She’s currently Migration Fellow at the Walder Foundation in Chicago, conducting research at the nexus of climate change and migration, and how cities and urban networks influence migration policy and narratives at the global level. She has previously led policy research and served in program management roles at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, as well as the United Nations Development Programme and the International Organization for Migration in Sri Lanka. Florita is a 2023/24 CERC Civil Society & Public Administration Fellow at Toronto Metropolitan University.

Achilles Kallergis is an Assistant Professor at the New School for Social Research and the Director of the Cities and Migration Project at the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility. His research focuses on urbanization, migration, and mobility in rapidly growing cities. Specifically, it explores environmental mobility and how locally-generated data can provide new evidence on mobility patterns and contribute to improving living conditions in low-income destination areas through better provision of housing and services. In his research, he has collaborated with transnational community networks Slum/Shack Dwellers International and the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights. At Zolberg, he directs the research program on cities and migration and coordinates the Research Platform on Cities and Human Mobility. 

Leander Kandilige is Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Migration Studies, University of Ghana. He obtained his DPhil (PhD) in Migration Studies from the University of Oxford and an MSt. in Forced Migration also from the University of Oxford. He also holds a PGCert. in Managing Voluntary Organisations from the University of Southampton. In addition, he holds an MA in International Affairs and a BA in Political Science and Philosophy from University of Ghana. His academic research interests include migration policy formulation; migration and development; labour mobility and regional integration; labour migrations in Africa; return migration and reintegration and theories of migration.

Laavanya Kathiravelu is Associate Professor and Associate Chair of Graduate Education in the School of Social Sciences at Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Her research is at the intersections of international migration, race and ethnic studies and urban diversity, particularly in Asia and the Persian Gulf. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (2011-2014) and a Fung Fellow at Princeton University (2015-16). Laavanya is board member of migrant welfare organisation, HOME as well as civil society group AWARE. In 2022, she was a Fulbright Scholar at the City University of New York (CUNY).

Binod Khadria is author, editor and former professor of Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. He held the inaugural Indian Council for Cultural Relations Chair at Rutgers University and served as Thematic Expert for the second UN consultative debate on GCM. Presently, he is Director of Migration and Globalization Studies, Centre for Multilevel Federalism, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi; President of the think-tank Global Research Forum on Diaspora and Transnationalism, and Co-convener of Metropolis Asia-Pacific. His publications include The Migration of Knowledge Workers (Sage 1999), two volumes of India Migration Report (Cambridge 2009, 2012), and To Europe and Back (co-edited, 2014, Springer), Sage Handbook of International Migration (London, 2019), World Migration Report 2020 (IOM-UN Migration), and a special issue of Asian and Pacific Migration, Journal on Transformative Perspectives from the Global South (Dec, 2022). Recently, he was appointed Affiliated Fellow at the Institute for the Study of International Migration, Georgetown University, and a Scholar of Excellence at CERC Migration, TMU.

Laura Madokoro’s research explores various aspects of the history of refugees and humanitarianism. She is specifically interested in topics relating to settler colonialism, human rights and race. She is currently an assistant professor at the Department of History and Classical Studies at McGill University. Laura has produced multiple scholarly publications that have been published in a variety of international and national academic journals including the Journal of Refugee Studies, the Canadian Historical Review, the Journal of the Canadian Historical Association and the Urban History Review. She completed her doctoral studies at the University of British Columbia.

Terry Martin is Director of Science-Policy Interface Agency, a Berlin-based research communications agency, and is a TV news anchor and journalist for Deutsche Welle. Terry has over 30 years of journalistic experience. He has worked extensively as both a political correspondent and business correspondent, anchored news at CNN International, and served as the Germany correspondent of Europe Magazine. Since 2008, Terry has also worked on improving the uptake of policy-relevant findings from EU-funded research projects. Terry wrote the European Commission’s guidebook Communicating research for evidence-based policymaking. Through his agency, SPIA, Terry is currently a partner in two EU-funded research projects (GAPs and Link4Skills) dealing with migration.

Claudia Masferrer is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Demographic, Urban, and Environmental Studies, Coordinator of the Seminar Migration, Inequality and Public Policy, and Member of the Research Group on Demographic Dynamics at El Colegio de México. Claudia holds a PhD in Sociology from McGill University and an MSc in Statistics from the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on internal and international migration, reintegration of returnees, immigrant integration, demographic dynamics, inequality, and how policy mediates these processes. Since 2023, she is an Associate Editor of International Migration Review.

Robert McLeman specializes in research on the human dimensions of environmental change, with particular attention to the relationship between environment and human migration. A former Canadian foreign service officer, Professor McLeman has advised UN agencies, the World Bank, and governments in Canada, the US, and Europe on issues related to climate change, migration and security. He served as a Coordinating Lead Author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2022 Working Group II report on climate change impacts, vulnerability and adaptation.

James Milner is Associate Professor, Political Science at Carleton University. He is also currently Project Director of LERRN: The Local Engagement Refugee Research Network, a seven-year, SSHRC-funded partnership between researchers and civil society actors primarily in Canada, Jordan, Kenya, Lebanon and Tanzania. He has been a researcher, practitioner and policy advisor on issues relating to the global refugee regime, global refugee policy and the politics of asylum in the global South. In recent years, he has undertaken field research in Burundi, Guinea, Kenya, India, Tanzania and Thailand, and has presented research findings to stakeholders in New York, Geneva, London, Ottawa, Bangkok, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and elsewhere. He has worked as a Consultant for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in India, Cameroon, Guinea and its Geneva Headquarters. He is author of Refugees, the State and the Politics of Asylum in Africa (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), co-author (with Alexander Betts and Gil Loescher) of UNHCR: The Politics and Practice of Refugee Protection (Routledge, 2012), and co-editor of Refugees’ Roles in Resolving Displacement and Building Peace: Beyond Beneficiaries (Georgetown University Press, 2019) and Protracted Refugee Situations: Political, Human Rights and Security Implications (UN University Press, 2008).

Martha Munezhi is Executive Director, Bridging Divides research program, TMU. An accomplished researcher and administrator, she joined TMU from Queen’s University, where she served as Assistant Director, Research Promotion and Initiatives and Interim Associate Dean, Research at Smith School of Business. Martha holds a PhD in sociology from the University of Utah, where she researched migration integration with a focus on population and health as a Fulbright Scholar. She also holds MSc and BSc degrees in sociology, demography and economics. She has conducted research at numerous academic, government and not-for-profit organizations in Canada, the United States and Zimbabwe and believes in the importance of data-driven decisions and research that improves lives. Her research has been funded by grants from Queen’s University Faculty Association and Social Science and Humanities Research Council.

Mireille Paquet is the Concordia Research Chair on the Politics of Immigration and Associate Professor of Politics at Concordia University. She is the scientific lead of the Équipe de recherche sur l’immigration dans le Québec Actuel, a co-lead of the Canada Research Excellence Fund project, Migrant Integration in the Mid-21st Century: Bridging Divides. She is the author of Province Building and the Federalization of Immigration in Canada (University of Toronto Press) and has co-edited Nouvelles dynamiques de l’immigration au Québec (Presses de l’Université de Montréal). She is currently conducting research on attitudes toward immigration policies in Canada and on the comparative evolution of administrations responsible for immigration.

Colin Rajah, a Malaysian migrant-refugee, is a long-time global civil society leader in migration. He is Coordinator of the Civil Society Action Committee, and of the GFMD’s Civil Society Mechanism. He served as Civil Society Representative at the 2022 IMRF, as Civil Society Chair for the 2016 GFMD, and Co-Chaired the Civil Society Forum for the 2013 UN-HLD on Migration and Development. He has co-founded and led other significant global civil society formations over three decades. Colin has authored numerous reports and articles on global civil society in migration including the 12 Key Ways Civil Society Paper for the 2022 IMRF.

A sought-after speaker, his TED talk on remittances, with almost 1.5 million views, has inspired many fintech start-ups. He is the Founder of KNOMAD, the Migrating out of Poverty Research Program Consortium, and the African Institute of Remittances. Considered a global expert on remittances and innovative financing, he has published pioneering papers on migration, diaspora bonds, future-flow securitization, predicting sovereign ratings, and South-South foreign-direct investment. In 2016, he was the inaugural senior visiting fellow at Harvard South Asia Institute and, during 2011-2013, a visiting professor of economics at the University of Sussex. Prior to joining the World Bank, Dilip was an Asia Regional Economist at Credit Agricole Indosuez W.I. Carr Securities (Hong Kong and Singapore). Prior to that, he was an assistant professor (macroeconomics) at the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. Dilip has a PhD in economics from Indian Statistical Institute and is frequently cited in major media channels worldwide.

Camille Schmoll has served as a lecturer at the University of Paris 7 Denis Diderot/USPC, a member of the Institut Universitaire de France, Director of Studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and a member of the Géographie-cités research lab and of the Institut Convergences Migration. Her research areas focus on migration dynamics in the Euro-Mediterranean area, where she privileges approaches which account for gender dynamics, and spatialized realities. Additionally, her publications are centralized around the specificity of women's migrations and the spatial and territorial implications of these migrations. This research has been studied in reception and detention centers and has been published in her book Les damnées de la mer en 2020. Camille completed her doctoral thesis at the University of Paris Nanterre.

Hélène Thiollet is a Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS) permanent researcher. Her research focuses on the politics of migration and asylum in the Global South, and subsequently focuses her empirical research on the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa. Hélène teaches international relations, comparative politics and migration studies at Sciences Po. She serves as a member of the editorial board of the European Journal of International Migration, Migration Politics and PARISS (Political Anthropological Research on International Social Sciences) and a member of the board of Journal of Refugee Studies. Hélène obtained her PhD in Political Science and International Relations from Sciences Po.

Colleen Thouez is the Founder and Director of the Refugee Resettlement Initiative (RRI) at the National Association of Higher Education Systems (NASH).  Previously, she served as the first Director of the Welcoming and Inclusive Cities Division at the Open Society Foundations (OSF), where she created the Mayors Migration Council (MMC) and its Global Cities Fund for Pandemic Relief (2019), the Africa-Europe Mayors Dialogue (2020), and the University Alliance for Refugees and At-Risk Migrants (UARRM) (2018). Colleen is a senior fellow at the New School’s Zolberg Institute on Human Mobility, and has held academic positions at Columbia University, American University, and Sciences Po Paris.