Speaker Biographies
Olayinka Akanle is Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa and Lecturer at the University of Ibadan, Nigeria. His scholarship and expertise is in international migration, policy, practice and sustainable development in Nigeria and Africa. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the South African Research Chair Initiative in Social Policy, College of Graduate Studies, University of South Africa, South Africa, and a recipient of other awards such as: World Social Science Fellow of The International Social Science Council, Paris, France; Laureate of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa; and the University of Ibadan Postgraduate School Prize for scholarly publication. Olayinka has published widely in local and international journals, books, technical reports and encyclopaedia. His works have appeared in Current Sociology, Journal of Anthropological Research, Journal of Developing Societies, Africa, Africa Today, International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy, African Population Studies, Asian and African Studies and International Journal of Sociology among others. He is the author of Kinship Networks and International Migration in Nigeria (Cambridge Scholar Publishers, 2013) and has co-edited books including The Development of Africa: Issues, Diagnosis and Prognosis (Springer Publishing, 2017).
Marshia Akbar is a Senior Research Associate with the Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) program in Migration and Integration at Ryerson University. Her research broadly encompasses how social inequalities and settlement policies shape the labour market integration of migrants in Canada. Marshia earned a doctorate degree from York University with a focus on migration and settlement studies. As a post-doctoral research fellow at York University, she analyzed settlement policies and integration challenges in Ontario and Quebec through a comparative lens. Her current research examines the policies about eligibility for permanent residency and settlement services and their impacts on the employment outcomes of different categories of temporary migrants in Canadian cities. The research will advance knowledge of location-specific labour market challenges for temporary residents and help identify required policy interventions. Analyzing qualitative data using NVivo and large quantitative data sets using SPSS and STATA is one of her strongest skills.
Mehrunnisa Ali teaches research design in three graduate programs at Ryerson University. Her research is about immigrant children, youth and families. Her most recent project was to document Syrian refugee children's memories of their lives in Syria, a transition country, and their early days in Canada. Her most recent publications include Documenting Syrian Refugee Children’s Memories: Methodological Insights and Further Questions (forthcoming) in International Journal of Qualitative Methods, and three chapters in the book Putting Family First (2019) edited by H. Bauder, UBC Press. Her forthcoming books are: Colonization of Immigrant Families, UBC Press, and an edited volume called Ethical Issues in Research with Refugee Children and Youth.
Prior to her migration to Canada, Mehrunnisa worked in Pakistan on designing and evaluating national projects on teacher education and girls’ education funded by World Bank, Unicef, Asian Development Bank, Aga Khan Development Network and others.
Mustafa Alio was born in Latakia, Syria. His own experiences of refuge, integration, and inclusion have been the foundation of his work and advocacy. He received his Bachelor degree in Business Administration and completed a post-graduate degree in Marketing Management and Financial Services. Mustafa is the co-founder, and currently the Managing Director of Jumpstart -- Refugee Talent. A co-founder and active board member of the Syrian Canadian Foundation, and a member of the Network for Refugee Voices. In addition, he is an executive committee member on (LERRN) Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (Lebanon, Jordon, Tanzania, and Kenya) which is about the role of civil society, local actors and refugee-led organizations in promoting protection and creating solutions. Mustafa has contributed a number of articles on refugees’ issues for board and international public audiences. Some of his articles can be read in the New York Times, Stanford Social Innovation Review, and Apolitical.
Ali Arya is an Associate Professor at the School of Information Technology, and the Associate Dean (Planning and Awards) at the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Affairs, Carleton University. His research interests include Human-Computer Interaction, Educational Technologies, Computer Games and Virtual Worlds, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Graphics and Animation, and Digital Art. He has extensive collaboration with researchers in other disciplines such as Psychology, Business, Industrial Design, Geography, and different Engineering fields. Ali’s research has been funded by the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE), and industrial partners. Ali is a senior member of IEEE, a member of ACM, and on the editorial board and technical committees of various journals and conferences in the areas related to his research.
Rupa Banerjee is an Associate Professor of Human Resource Management and Organizational Behaviour at the Ted Rogers School of Management. Rupa examines the employment experiences of immigrants and racialized Canadians, both from the perspective of highly skilled immigrants and temporary foreign workers, in order to uncover the factors that pose barriers for immigrants and the potential avenues to overcome their disadvantage. Her recent studies examine the labour market experiences of immigrants. Currently, Rupa is working on a five-year study, funded by a SSHRC Insight Grant, examining recent changes in skilled immigrant selection policy to uncover how these changes affect employers and newly arrived immigrants, and their ability to integrate into Canadian society. In another recent project, funded by the CIHR, she collaborated with the largest immigrant service provider in Toronto to develop a digital tool to improve integration for newcomers.
Harald Bauder is the Director of the Graduate Program in Immigration and Settlement Studies and a Professor in the Department of Geography at Ryerson University. His research interests are in critical border and migration studies, with a current interest in the role of cities in accommodating vulnerable migrants and refugee. His recent books include Sanctuary Cities and Urban Struggles: Rescaling Migration, Citizenship, and Rights (Manchester U Press, 2019, co-edited with Jonathan Darling); Putting Family First: Migration and Integration in Canada (ed., 2019, UBC Press), and Migration Borders Freedom (2017, Routledge).
Monica Boyd is professor and Canada Research Chair in Immigration, Inequality and Public Policy, 2001-2015, University of Toronto. Trained as a demographer and sociologist, Monica has written numerous articles, books and monographs on the changing family, gender inequality, international migration (with foci on policy, on immigrant integration and on immigrant women) and ethnic/racial stratification. Her present research focuses on the 1.5 and 2nd generations, labour market integration of refugees, immigrant re-accreditation difficulties, and the employment of migrant women in Canada’s care economy. In addition to her numerous contributions in advisory and consultant capacities to non-governmental organizations, Canadian government departments, the United Nations and the OECD, Monica has served twice as an elected board member of the Population Association of America, as elected presidents of the Canadian Sociological Association and the Canadian Population Society, as Vice President (representing the Academy of Social Sciences) of the Royal Society of Canada, and as Chair of the International Migration section of the American Sociological Association.
Manolli Ekra is currently the Senior Coordinator of Policy and Research at Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI). She has a Master’s in local planning and community development from Paris I La Sorbonne University. She has a history of working and consulting in the nonprofit sector in areas of international development, humanitarian aid and research. She also has volunteered for organizations like Oxfam and the Agha Khan Foundation. Her current research and interest pertains to precarious livelihood, wellbeing, quality of life and advocating for more accessibility and inclusiveness, particularly for the most vulnerable people.
Andrew Burridge is a political geographer, based in the Department of Geography and Planning at Macquarie University, Sydney. He is the convenor of the interdisciplinary Refugee Studies undergraduate major at Macquarie, and is Research Coordinator for the Cities and Settlement Initiative at the Centre for Policy Development.
Andrew received his PhD from the University of Southern California, where he explored humanitarian-aid mapping practices in the Mexico-U.S. borderlands. From 2013-2016, Andrew was based at the University of Exeter, where he was Lead Researcher on an ESRC-funded project concerned with asylum-seeker appeal hearings in the UK First-Tier Immigration and Asylum Tribunal. Between 2010 and 2013, Andrew was a member of the International Boundaries Research Unit (IBRU), a consultancy that works to minimize conflict associated with international boundaries on land and at sea, based at Durham University in the UK. Andrew has worked with several immigrant and refugee rights organizations including No More Deaths/No Más Muertes (U.S.); Bristol Refugee Rights and Right to Remain (UK); and the International Detention Coalition.
Raul Delgado Wise is author and editor of 30 books and more than 200 book chapters and refereed articles, and has been a guest lecturer in over 40 countries. President and founder of the International Network on Migration and Development, co-Director of the Critical Development Studies Network, and professor and director of the Doctoral Program in Development Studies at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas. He is also Editor of the journal Migración y Desarrollo. He holds the UNESCO Chair on Migration, Development and Human Rights at the Autonomous University of Zacatecas.
Bilal Farooq is the Canada Research Chair in Disruptive Transportation Technologies and Services. He is currently an Assistant Professor at Ryerson University and the Founding Director of Laboratory of Innovations in Transportation. He received a Bachelor of Engineering from University of Engineering and Technology and a Master of Computer Science from Lahore University of Management Sciences, both in Pakistan. He worked in the software industry for several years before starting his PhD in Transportation Engineering at University of Toronto. Bilal has worked at EPFL Switzerland and Polytechnique Montréal before joining Ryerson in 2017. He has received the Early Researcher Award both in the province of Québec (2014) and Ontario (2018). His current work focuses on the network and behavioural implications of emerging transportation technologies and services.
Usha George is Director of the Ryerson Centre for Immigration and Settlement, leading three research studies: a SSHRC Insight Grant on the citizenship experiences of racialized women in Toronto; a SSHRC Partnership Development Grant on Syrian resettlement; and an IRCC funded Service Delivery Improvement Grant on the entrepreneurial activities of newcomers in Ontario.
Usha served as Dean of the Faculty of Community Services from 2006-2016 and from 2016-17 as interim Vice President, Research and Innovation at Ryerson University. In 2015, she was awarded the Errol Aspevig Award for Outstanding Academic Leadership. She is a past director of the Ontario Metropolis Centre of Excellence for Immigration and Settlement (CERIS). Usha’s research and scholarly activities span the continuum of immigrant transition from newcomers to citizens. Her research has attracted over $13.3 million in funding. She has published extensively on immigrant settlement and integration and her work has contributed to policy and program changes in the area of newcomer settlement. She has paid special attention to the intersectionality of oppressions faced by racialized immigrant women.
Daniel Hailemariam is a PhD student in Immigration Policy Studies at Ryerson University, and is a Registered Social Worker, with a Masters of Social Work from University of Toronto. His research focus includes refugee resettlement policy, refugee mental health, international refugee protection, and global migration. In his professional capacity, he has worked with refugees through the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR resettlement program) since 2007, which included working in countries such as Kenya, Uganda, Namibia, Zambia, and the UNHCR regional office for West and Central Africa. In his role as a resettlement expert with UNHCR, Daniel interviewed refugees in urban and camp settings to assess their needs for durable solutions through resettlement to third countries. He has extensive experience working with refugees from various countries, which include Burundi, Central African Republic, Côte d'Ivoire, Darfur, Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Somalia.
Jill Hanley is an Associate Professor at the McGill School of Social Work and Scientific Director of the Sherpa Research Institute on Migration, Health and Social Services. She is also Director of the PhD program at the McGill School of Social Work. At Sherpa, Jill is leading a team to investigate how front-line interventions with migrants can be enhanced and what policy changes are required to improve access to social rights for this group. Throughout the past 20 years, Jill has researched access to health, housing and labour rights for precarious status migrants, exploring strategies for promoting access to social rights at the individual, family and community level. In recent work, Jill has investigated access to healthcare for a continuum of precarious status migrants; homelessness and housing insecurity for migrant women; labour rights among temporary foreign workers; and community responses to human trafficking.
Jill also works closely with a number of community organizations where she engages in policy dialogue to highlight the needs of marginalized migrant communities. She is a co-founder of Montreal’s Immigrant Workers’ Centre, where she has been actively involved since 2000.
Gioconda Herrera holds a PhD in Sociology from Columbia University and is Professor at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) in Quito, Ecuador. Her research and publications have revolved around questions about the effects of globalization on social inequalities in Latin America from a gender perspective, for which she has looked at Andean migration to Europe and the United States, especially of women and indigenous peoples, and also at the migratory returns and circularities that have taken place as a result of the global economic crisis. She currently is investigating the post-deportation life of indigenous migrants in rural communities of Ecuador, and is part of a comparative research team of eight countries on Venezuelan migration in Latin America. She chairs the Sociology and Gender Studies program at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO-Ecuador). Gioconda was Associate Editor of the Latin American Research Review in the area of Sociology. She has been recently elected President of the Latin American Studies Association for the period 2020-2021.
Daniel Hiebert is a Professor of Geography at University of British Columbia who specializes in issues of public policy. His personal research interests focus on immigration policy, the integration of newcomers into the housing and labour markets of Canadian cities, and the consequences of the growing 'super-diversity' of Canadian society. This work routinely takes a collaborative approach, working with partners in government and non-government organizations.
In 2003-2013, Daniel served as Co-Director of Metropolis British Columbia, a Centre of Excellence fostering research on immigration and cultural diversity in Canada, which was also dedicated to building a sense of community among academics, government officials, and practitioners from the non-profit sector. He has participated in a number of public advisory roles. He served as a co-chair of the City of Vancouver Mayor's Working Group on Immigration (until 2017) and is currently a member of the Deputy Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada's Advisory Council.
Anna Korteweg is Professor and Chair of Sociology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Her research has focused on the ways in which the perceived problems of immigrant integration are constructed at the intersections of gender, religion, ethnicity and national origin. From this critical vantage point, she has analyzed debates surrounding the wearing of the headscarf, so-called “honour-based” violence, and Sharia law. Her current research projects increasingly turn to management of border. In addition to her research on the return of women who joined IS to their European home countries, Professor Korteweg is analyzing racialization and the construction of LGBTQ/gender rights in refugee politics, and the citizenship implications of refugee sponsorship in Canada.
Priya Kumar is a Research Fellow at Ryerson University’s Social Media Lab. Kumar completed her PhD on global diaspora politics at SOAS, University of London. In her dissertation, Priya examined online representations of stateless diaspora communities, with focus on the Middle East and South Asia. Dr. Kumar combines social network analysis with digital qualitative research methods to study online identity politics, with a focus on exploring the dynamic interplay between digital media communication technologies, human rights, democracy, and foreign policy
Natalie MacArthur is a strategist and marketing lead with experience in working with organizations ranging from start-up to enterprise, and with local and global mandates. Her goal is to integrate agility and design thinking into the strategic planning process with the end goal of creating world-class messaging that not only informs, influences and inspires audiences but also creates positive change in the workplace to support initiatives that drive acquisition and employee satisfaction. She created Invest Ottawa’s Talent Strategy & Attraction Program; a meaningful multi-year strategy to help growing, Ottawa-based knowledge firms attract, develop and retain the top technical and business talent required to thrive, compete and succeed in the global market.
Shamira Madhany joined World Education Services (WES) as Managing Director Canada and Deputy Executive Director in 2018, after more than two decades of public service. She has extensive experience working with licensing bodies, settlement agencies, and higher education and post-secondary sectors in Ontario. She served as the chief architect of several government programs that enable highly skilled immigrants to obtain employment in their fields. Shamira played a key role in the launch of WES Canada in 2000 during her tenure at the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration as Provincial Lead, Access to Professions and Trades.
Marie McAuliffe is the head of the Migration Policy Research Division at the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and Chief Editor of IOM’s flagship World Migration Report. She has two decades of experience in migration research, policy and practice. Prior to joining IOM in 2016, Marie led research and policy teams in government and consulted to IOM, the International Labour Organization (ILO) as well as in the private sector, including in Korea, Russia, Central Asia and Turkey. For three years, Marie directed the $6.5 million Australian irregular migration research program. She has regularly been called upon to advise senior leaders on migration and displacement, including Mr. Kofi Annan in his capacity as Chair of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine State. Marie is the 2018 recipient of the Charles Price Prize in Demography for outstanding doctoral research in migration studies.
Stein Monteiro is a Research Fellow in the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration program at Ryerson University. His research focuses on issues of assimilation and integration among new immigrant groups and the causal relationships between the socio-structural characteristics of the host or sending country and the potential migrant's decision.
Stein holds a PhD Economics from York University. As a part of his dissertation, Stein explored themes related to family dynamics and its influence on migration decisions on individuals within an extended family context, in addition to the role of co-ethnic networks in affecting assimilation rates among new immigrant groups in Canada.
Stein has advanced data science skills to analyze large administrative and survey data sets. Stein recently contributed to a project at the International Growth Center (London School of Economics) which identifies the impact of road building in rural areas of Ethiopia on village-level crop yields and income. Working with linked administrative and survey data at Statistics Canada’s Research Data Centre, he aims to identify how the properties of typical social networks play a role in the process of integration among new immigrant groups.
Georgia Papagianni is a member of the Legal Service of the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs currently working as Deputy Head of the Maghreb Division of the European External Action Service in Brussels. She is an expert on European migration law and policy with extensive experience both as researcher and practitioner for over 20 years. Between March 2013 and April 2019, she worked as Coordinator for Migration at the European External Action Service. During the 2003 Greek EU Presidency she chaired the Migration Council Working Groups. During the Greek OSCE Chairmanship in 2009, she served as Senior Advisor to the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities in The Hague. Georgia received her PhD from the European University Institute in Florence and has studied at the College of Europe (Bruges, Belgium), the Université Libre de Bruxelles, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and the University of Strasbourg.
Nicola Piper, a political sociologist, is Professor of International Migration at the University of Sydney (and the Founding Director of the Sydney Asia Pacific Migration Centre). She is currently a British Academy Global Professor Fellow hosted by Queen Mary University of London’s School of Law, conducting research on global governance of labour migration and the role of the International Labour Organisation in the promotion of decent work for migrant workers (January 2019 to December 2022). Nicola is also partner investigator in the UKRI funded Global Challenge Research Hub on South-South Migration and Inequality and co-lead of the Gender Work Package (2019-2023). Furthermore, she is co-chief editor of the Journal Global Social Policy and editor of two book series with Routledge (Asian Migration with Profs. Chan and Lee; Labour and Skills Mobility in Asia with Prof. Eric Fong, Chinese University of Hong Kong).
Irudaya Rajan is Professor at the Centre for Development Studies (CDS), Kerala. He is Chair of the KNOMAD Thematic group on Internal Migration and Urbanization. With more than three decades of research experience at the CDS, he has coordinated eight major migration surveys in Kerala since 1998 (with Professor K. C. Zachariah); conducted migration surveys in Goa (2008), Punjab (2011) and Tamil Nadu (2015); and also provided technical support to the Gujarat Migration Survey (2010). He has published extensively in national and international journals on social, economic, demographic, psychological and political implications on migration. He is editor of the annual series ‘India Migration Report’ ( Routledge) since 2010 and the editor-in-chief of the Journal, Migration and Development, (Taylor and Francis), since 2012. He works closely with the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, and the Department of Non-Resident Keralite Affairs, Government of Kerala.
John Shields is a Professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University where he has taught and researched for over 30 years. He has published extensively in the broad areas of immigration and settlement, labour market policy, social policy, and the political economy of the non-profit sector. His last two books are Precarious Employment: Causes, Consequences and Remedies (edited with Stephanie Procyk and Wayne Lewchuk, 2017), and Immigrant Experiences in North America: Understanding Settlement and Integration (edited with Harald Bauder, 2015). He is a past-Director of CERIS - The Ontario Metropolis Centre (Centre of Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement) and a previous interim Director of the Ryerson Centre for Immigration and Settlement (RCIS). In 2016, he received the National Metropolis Researcher Award. From 2009 to 2012, he served as Managing Editor of the Journal of International Migration and Integration (JIMI) and continues to sit on its editorial board.
Claudia Tazreiter is an Associate Professor of Sociology at UNSW, Sydney. Her research focuses on the social and affective impacts of forced and irregular migration, on human rights culture, the role of civil society in social change and gender in migration. She is the author of numerous books and over 60 journal articles and book chapters. Claudia’s recent book, Fluid Security in the Asia Pacific: Transnational Lives and State Control, is a collaboration with Sharon Pickering, Leanne Weber, Marie Segrave and Helen McKernan (Palgrave 2016). She is currently editing the Elgar Handbook on Global Justice and Migration with Leanne Weber (2020). Claudia is co-convenor of the Forced Migration Research Network and has had visiting appointments at The University of Vienna (2018), the Center for Place, Culture and Politics(2014) and the Centre for International Studies, Science Po (2011) and is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Migration and Intercultural Studies, University Osnabrück.
Joseph Kofi Teye is Professor and Director of the Centre for Migration Studies at the University of Ghana. He holds a PhD in Geography from the University of Leeds and a Master of Philosophy in Social Change from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. His current research interests include migration and development, migration policy development, environmental change and migration, and natural resource governance. Joseph has participated in large research projects funded by international organisations, including, UK Research & Innovation, Department for International Development (UK), the European Union, the ACP Observatory on Migration, and International Labour Organiation/OECD. He has facilitated the development of National Labour Migration and National Migration Policies for Ghana and a number of African countries.
Anna Triandafyllidou (@triandafyllidou) is the new Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration at Ryerson University. Prior to her CERC at Ryerson, Anna was based in Florence, Italy, where she held a Robert Schuman Chair at the European University Institute where she directed the Cultural Pluralism research area (external link) at the EUI’s Global Governance Program. She is the Editor of the Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies. She has been Visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges between 2002 and 2018. Anna’s recent books include: Migrants with Irregular Status in Europe (Springer IMISCOE, with S. Spencer ed., 2020); Migration and Globalisation Handbook (E. Elgar, ed. 2018); The Problem of Religious Diversity (with T. Modood, ed. Edinburgh University Press, 2018); Multicultural Governance in a Mobile World (ed. Edinburgh University Press, 2018), Global Governance from Regional Perspectives (Oxford University Press, ed., 2017). Her latest authored book is What is Europe? (with R. Gropas, Palgrave, 2015) and she is currently working on a monograph on Migration, Globalisation and the Nation.
Zhixi Zhuang is an Associate Professor at Ryerson’s School of Urban and Regional Planning and a Registered Professional Planner. Her research explores how immigrant settlement affects city landscapes and municipal policies and planning. She has been conducting mixed-method and arts-informed research in various immigrant suburbs across the Toronto Region. Her research addresses the importance of adopting equity-based approaches to engage immigrants in decision-making and support inclusive community-building, and provides empirical evidence to help inform policymakers and planning practitioners of community perspectives. One of her research outputs is a 25-minute documentary entitled “Globurbia: Suburban Place-making Amidst Diversity”.