Alka Kumar

Alka Kumar, PhD., is a Mitacs Elevate Postdoctoral Fellow with the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) in Migration and Integration at the Toronto Metropolitan University. She pursued her doctoral studies in a Peace and Conflict Studies program at the University of Manitoba, focusing on the labour market experiences of racialized skilled professionals, using qualitative methods, a practitioner lens, and a solution-focused approach.

In her current research and practice project, Stories of impact: Migration journeys of refugee women from Syria, Afghanistan and Ukraine, Alka partners with a community agency; she employs storytelling, narrative enquiry, and participatory research methods to work with refugee women-with the objective of building better understanding about their migration journeys and their re-settlement experiences in Canada. Supporting capacity building for participants is an important aspect of the project too.

Alka has equal interest in research and practice, and through her work she aims to bridge these two worlds that are often quite separate and siloed from each other.

In a consulting role, Alka undertakes projects with immigrant-serving organizations involving research, strategy development, and leadership training. She also develops resources in, and teaches Workplace Communication, Business Writing, and Cross-cultural Communication to support individuals in career development and employment acceleration.