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The Migration Research Network is a diverse group of PhD students engaged in migration research. Find out about the projects taking place within this collaborative and supportive academic community
The MRU PhD Network invites PhD students across UCL departments and disciplines to join us in a variety of activities, including training, peer support, networking, knowledge exchange, reading and discussion. The network currently runs regular reading groups where we discuss innovative approaches to the study of migration. We will also be organising seminars for later-stage PhD students to share their writing and receive feedback from their peers.
MRU PhD Network Members
Gayoung Choi
- Thesis title: Multiculturalism and Education: A Study of Early Childhood Education and Care in South Korea
- Supervisors: Professor Paul Morris and Dr Diana Sousa
Gayoung Choi is a doctoral candidate at University College London, Institute of Education (UCL, IOE). Previously, she taught in diverse early childhood education and care school settings in South Korea and the United Kingdom. Through her teaching experience, she developed a great interest in early childhood education policies and practices. She completed her MA in Early Years Education at UCL, IOE in 2017/18. Her master's dissertation focuses on complementary schooling and the Korean diaspora in the United Kingdom. Currently, she researches multiculturalism and education which is focused on early childhood education and care in South Korea, which has been regarded as an ethnically homogenous country. Particularly, she investigates multiculturalism-related education policy documents and school enactment of multiculturalism in the early childhood education and care sector.
Susanna Corona
Susanna's PhD project supervised by Dr Delan Devakumar and Dr Rochelle Burgess regards the ethnographic exploration of the concepts of identity and resilience in a population of unaccompanied migrant minors and youth who are in or have experienced transit through Mexico. Susanna is a medical doctor interested in social determinants of health in children and young people, particularly in forced migration contexts. Following this interest, she has written her final degree thesis on age assessment in unaccompanied minors under the supervision of Professor Cristina Cattaneo of the Institute of Legal Medicine of Milan. After graduating, thanks to the help of Professor Paolo Vineis from Imperial, she has worked in Turin at the IIGM (Italian Institute for Genomic Medicine), collaborating in the analysis of a birth cohort part of the Lifepath project.
Areej Jamal
PhDc, TCRU, UCL, Social Research Institute
Areej's research is about the identity and belonging of the South Asian migrant families living in Saudi Arabia. Despite restrictive policies of citizenship rights and permanent residency some migrant families have managed to live in Saudi Arabia for generations. This study aims to understand how South Asian parents and their children in Saudi Arabia articulate their identity and sense of belonging. Considering the recent socio-economic policy changes in Saudi Arabia, the research also explores the future aspirations of these migrants.
Louisa Long
- Thesis title: Accessing justice in a super-diverse city? The experiences of undocumented female migrants in London.
- Supervisors: Professor Mette Berg (primary) and Dr Agnieszka Kubal (secondary)
Louisa is in the first year of her PhD at the Thomas Coram Research Unit, UCL, having just completed a master's in social policy and research at the Social Research Institute, UCL. Her doctoral research will explore undocumented female migrants’ experiences of accessing justice in London, and how gender, immigration status, and the condition of “illegality” shape their encounters with the British legal environment. Louisa has a longstanding interest in migrants’ rights and her research will centre on fieldwork based at a migrant support service where she has volunteered for several years. Using ethnographic and other qualitative methods, she will examine the barriers undocumented female migrants face in actualising their limited rights.
Amandas Ong
- Thesis title: Life in the “Shadow Nation”: Networks of Care and Resilience Among Asylum-Seeking Women in the UK
- Supervisors: Professor Rebecca Empson and Associate Professor Ammara Maqsood
Amandas is a PhD candidate in the Anthropology department. Her research examines the relationships forged by asylum-seeking women within the setting of community education. Through her work, she asks how these networks and practices of care may bring to life a "shadow nation", where the nurturing of moral and ethical subjects can flourish within a seemingly closed, draconian asylum system. She also works as a features journalist and has been awarded grants from the National Geographic Society and the International Women's Media Foundation to pursue long-form reporting projects that train a lens on issues at the intersection of women's rights and migration. She has worked with Al Jazeera, The Guardian, Bloomberg, Slate and other publications.
Michael Ruprecht
Michael’s research focuses on the link between internal forced migration and climate change/climate variability. He explores the dynamics of rural-to-urban migratory flows of ethnic minorities, in particular Afro-Colombians in the context of the Colombian armed conflict. His interests lie in conceptualising the social dimension of vulnerability and resilience, as well as exploring how individuals and communities produce distinct mitigation and adaptation strategies. Before pursuing his PhD at UCL, he worked for UNHCR, the ICRC, various NGOs, government institutions and academia. He holds a BA and MA in political science and international relations, as well as an LLM in international public law from a range of universities in Australia, Japan, Switzerland and Spain.
Jessica Sullivan
- Research Title: Exploring refugees’ bordering, belonging, and presencing in urban Amman through co-creating visual art
- Supervisors: Dr Caroline Oliver and Dr Tom Western
Jessie is a fourth-year PhD student in the Education, Practice, and Society Department of the Institute of Education at UCL. She studies the impact of infrastructure and access to services on the experience of belonging of refugees and forced migrants in Amman, Jordan. She uses mixed methodologies to understand the diverse experiences of refugee groups with differentiated access to rights and services, including semi-structured interviews, ethnographic observation, and collaborative co-creative visual arts workshops. She taught on the MSc Global Migration programme for two years. Jessie is organising the Migration Research Unit PhD Network.
Makda Weatherspoon
- Research Title: Barriers and facilitators to access preventative health services among Ethiopian refugee women with limited literacy
- Supervisors: Dr Brad Blitz and Dr Amy North
Accessing healthcare systems and adopting healthy behaviours can present challenges for native citizens. However, refugees face an array of additional obstacles that significantly impact their access to preventative care, and thus their health outcomes. Makda’s study delves into the lived experiences and strategies employed by refugee women with low literacy levels in accessing preventive healthcare for themselves and their families. To achieve this, she intends to conduct a study involving Ethiopian refugee women who have limited literacy and proficiency in the English language, residing in Seattle, Washington. The objective is to gain insights into how healthcare facilities cater to the requirements of this demographic in their service delivery. Furthermore, this inquiry aims to examine and comprehend the effectiveness of English language programs in enhancing refugees' comprehension of the U.S. healthcare system and their ability to navigate it.
Roghieh Dehghan
Roghieh Dehghan works on moral injury and its association with mental health in Iranian refugee torture survivors based in the UK. She is a Wellcome Clinical Research Fellow at the UCL Centre for Multidisciplinary and Intercultural Inquiry (CMII). She also is a practising NHS GP in North London. The main thread that runs through her research is the health of marginalised populations. Since 2012, her research has focused on the mental health of torture survivors. Her commitment to epistemic justice and health equities sustains her academic focus on refugees.
Get involved
If you are interested in joining the MRU PhD Network, please email the network coordinator Jessie Sullivan (jessica.sullivan.21@ucl.ac.uk). We are currently looking for new and energized organisers, so please do get in touch!
