We are pleased to offer a very warm welcome to our Visiting Fellows for Michaelmas term 2023.
This term we have seven Visiting Fellows:
Dr Ahmad Al Ajlan is a senior lecturer and researcher at the Faculty for Sociology at Bielefeld University, Germany. Before, he was a lecturer in political sociology in Syria. His topics of interest are the labour market integration of forced migrants, forced migrants’ difficulties in learning the host country’s language, conflict and violence in the context of forced migrants, older age forced migrants, young forced migrants, the interactions between forced migrants especially in the collective accommodations, and conflict and violence within the context of forced migration. In his research, he uses qualitative methods.
Suzete Almeida de Bessa is an architect and urban planner who graduated from the Faculty of Architecture of the State University of Goiás, Brazil, in 2009. She has a Masters in Architecture and Urbanism from the Postgraduate Program of the University of Brasília (2016). She is a PhD student in Human Rights from the Interdisciplinary Postgraduate Program in Human Rights at the Federal University of Goiás. She has been full-time Assistant Professor at the Federal University of Goiás - UFG, Campus Goiás since 2017. Suzete currently coordinates the extension of the Sergio Vieira de Mello Chair at UFG. She also coordinates the interdisciplinary extension and research group Resilient Architecture, which investigates urban-architectural relations and forced displacement.
Dr Agata Blaszczyk has been working for the Polish Emigration Research Unit at the Polish University Abroad (PUNO) in London. Agata’s research examines historical and cultural sources and meanings of exile and forced migration, as well as the significance of encampment, enclosures and forced settlement. Her study explores the origins of Polish Displaced People (political refugees) and all aspects of their settlement, including the activity of the government agencies brought to life by the British after WW2. It explains the political implications of the passage of the Polish Resettlement Bill in March 1947 (the first ever British legislation dealing with mass immigration) and how the original refugees formed much of the Polish community as it exists today.
Lívia Lemos Falcão de Almeida is a lawyer with expertise in human rights and international law. Currently she is employed as a Human Rights Consultant at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), the primary and independent human rights organ of the Organization of American States (OAS). Concurrently, she is pursuing a doctorate in Law, Government, and Public Policy at the Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), focusing on the research topic of the massive human rights violations under international refugee law. Lívia holds a master’s degree in international law from the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM). Additionally, she achieved a master’s degree in public law, graduating with honors, from the Federal University of Alagoas (UFAL).
Dr Carmen Logie, Canada Research Chair in Global Health Equity and Social Justice with Marginalized Populations, is a Full Professor at the Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work, University of Toronto, Adjunct Professor at the United Nations University Institute for Water, Environment, & Health, Research Scientist at Centre for Gender & Sexual Health Equity, and Adjunct Scientist at Women’s College Hospital. Her research program advances understanding of, and develops interventions to address, stigma and social factors associated with HIV and other health disparities. Her current research focuses on HIV prevention, testing and care cascades in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, and Canada with people living with HIV, refugee and displaced youth, LGBTQ communities, and Indigenous youth.
Liam Moore holds a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) from the University of Queensland, Australia, and is in the final stages of a PhD in International Relations at the University of Wollongong. The dissertation is titled Small States, Contestation, and Climate Mobilities in the Pacific, and it identifies the conditions under which small states create significant normative change. More specifically it examines how states in the Pacific are responding to issues of climate mobilities, displacement, and relocation in novel ways. Liam has a strong background in research on forced displacement and human mobility, particularly around climate-related mobilities, internal displacement, and mobilities in Pacific Island states.
Barbara Moser-Mercer, professor emerita and founder of InZone (University of Geneva), is visiting professor at the University of Nairobi, engaged in strengthening African solutions that advance Higher Education in Emergencies (HEiE) and has been coordinating the launch phase of the African Higher Education in Emergencies Network (AHEEN). Her research in psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology has been instrumental in informing the design and the development of student-centered multilingual digital learning environments in different fragile contexts. Building on insights and experience in a variety of displacement contexts she has studied, as well as further developed, a viable interface between humanitarian and academic actors conducive to scaling higher education opportunities for displaced youth that benefit both students and their communities and inform education policy in refugee-hosting countries.
Details on the Visiting Fellowship programme can be found here. Applications are now open for Michaelmas Term 2024 (Sunday 13 October - Saturday 7 December 2024). Applications will close on 2 January 2024.
