Doctoral researchers
Doctoral student researchers are at the heart of the SCMR research community. We are privileged to have a large and diverse group of outstanding PhD students working on a huge variety of migration-related topics.
Humanity Wall, Ghent, Belgium (Photo: Paganelli, 2018)
SCMR doctoral researchers
Migration is an interdisciplinary subject of study. Βι¶ΉΣ³»’s Migration Studies PhD programme allows students to explore connections between different disciplinary approaches in one of the most vibrant interdisciplinary migration research centres anywhere in the world.
Students in Migration Studies at Βι¶ΉΣ³» typically have supervisors in different academic departments and often in different schools, allowing broad connections to be drawn. Seminars, workshops and other events organised by SCMR offer further opportunities for discussion and exchange across traditional disciplinary boundaries.
For an indication of the huge variety of topics our doctoral researchers work on, have a look at the list below. If you would like to study for a PhD with SCMR please see the links on the teaching and supervision page for how to apply.
“It was a great environment to learn about migration topics as well as to be in touch with many different researchers (from other doctoral and early career researchers, to professors).” VÍTOR LOPES ANDRADE (PhD, 2026)
Researched asylum claims based on sexual orientation and gender identity
Selected current doctoral researchers
Read about what just some of our current PhD researchers are working on.
- Camila Monteiro Pereira
What school are you in? Global Studies
What is the title of your thesis?
Envisioning alternative paths: an inquiry into future-making practices within migratory communities in the Amazon region of Roraima
What’s it about?
My aim is to investigate how migrant groups in the city of Boa Vista, Roraima, Brazil engage in collective future making processes. My focus is to analyse how a diverse group – Venezuelans and indigenous migrants - develop strategies to reframe their perceived connectedness by joining cultural associations as an alternative route from institutionalised help and in anticipation of an imagined desirable/undesirable future. I chose to investigate indigenous migrants and Venezuelan migrants because first I am personally involved with one of the cultural associations that support these groups activities and because I believe it is important to consider different aspects of migration to better support them. In the case of my research, I explore how Venezuelan’s migrants and indigenous migrants organize activities that are informed by visions of desirable and undesirable futures.
What motivated you to do your PhD on a migration topic?
After being involved in assisting Venezuelans refugees and migrants in Roraima, Brazil in 2018 I understood that a movement of people that has no precedent was taking place. I was drawn to understand why and how entire indigenous groups were leaving indigenous lands in Venezuela to settle in Brazil and in other parts of Latin America. I think this movement deserve more attention considering that these group leave their land to maybe never come back. In addition, this movement represent a challenge for Estate policy once there is not a special status for foreign indigenous migrants in Brazil.
Email: cm863@sussex.ac.uk
- Jo Hills
What school are you in? Global Studies
What is the title of your thesis?
Analysing intersecting power dynamics in Trans* refugees’ experiences of UK border practices
What’s it about?
My research focuses on trans* refugees experiences of navigating the UK border system as well as the relationships between cisnormativity, transnormativity and the wider enforcement of racialized gender that occurs in contemporary UK border practices. In doin, this, I hope to critically interrogate the policies that structure trans* people’s experience of claiming asylum in the UK and as well the ways said policies are transversed and resisted by trans* people. Theoretically my work draws on a combination of strands of within trans* studies and sits at the disciplinary overlap between critical border studies and wider traditions of queer and trans migration research.
What motivated you to do your PhD on a migration topic?
I was frustrated with the ways the academic literature approaches the relationship between transness and borders and believed in the need for research that attempted to understand the governance of transness in UK border practices by engaging with the perspectives of trans* people who experience them. More generally, I am interested in ways academic and activist traditions of trans* political thought have conceptualized the state’s regulation of gender normativity and practices of resistance to this.
Email: jh2038@sussex.ac.uk
- Cecilia Manzotti
What school are you in? Law Politics and Sociology (LPS)
What is the title of your thesis?
Unknown nationality? The determination of the nationality status and possible statelessness of asylum-seekers and refugees in Europe
What’s it about?
My research is about nationality status determination and statelessness identification in the context of asylum procedures in Europe, with a particular focus on Germany, Italy and Switzerland. The determination of the nationality, or lack thereof, of asylum-seekers is a key component of assessments of applications for international protection, and has important consequences that stretch well beyond the asylum procedure. Establishing an asylum-seeker’s nationality status may prove difficult when the person does not submit any valid identity or travel documents, is stateless or at risk of statelessness. My research aims to shed light on an overlooked aspect of asylum procedures—nationality status determination— and identify gaps, deficiencies and challenges involved in the determination of the nationality status of asylum-seekers and refugees, as well as good practices and opportunities for improvement. I hope that the evidence produced by my research may contribute to the improvement of nationality determination and statelessness identification in the context of asylum procedures in Europe. In my research, I adopt a socio-legal perspective and rely on a review of primary and secondary sources, as well as questionnaires and interviews with different actors involved in asylum and statelessness determination procedures in Europe.
What motivated you to do your PhD on a migration topic?
I am passionate about migration, and before starting my PhD I worked for several years in different areas of migration, including refugee protection, research on smuggling of migrants and trafficking in persons, statelessness prevention and eradication. Working in refugee status determination, I developed a keen interest in the nexus between displacement and statelessness and the intersection between refugee law and statelessness law. I decided to pursue a PhD in law to explore this further and nurture my curiosity.
Read an example of Cecilia’s work at the
Email: c.manzotti@sussex.ac.uk
- Eman Alatawi
What school are you in? Media Arts and Humanities (MAH)
What is the title of your thesis?
The representation of migrants in the UK and Saudi Arabia press: A cross-linguistic corpus assisted discourse analysis
What’s it about?
The thesis focuses on the media representation of migrants’ issues. Media representations are the ways in which the media portrays some specific experiences, groups, communities, topics or ideas based on certain values or ideological perspectives. My thesis aims to examine the portrayal of migrants in the UK and Saudi Arabian media in order to explore the involvement of three linguistic features through the media’s representation of migrant topics; these features are: the use of names, metaphors and collocations to describe migrants by the press in the UK and Saudi Arabia, along with considering the impact of these depictions.
What motivated you to do your PhD on a migration topic?
Most studies that analyse media content have addressed migrants’ plight in the UK, Europe and the US, but few have considered the Middle East. Thus, there is a need to cover the portrayal of migrants by public media in countries such as Saudi Arabia, as there is a lack of comparative research. There is a critical need for studies that focus on the press in the Middle East, particularly in Saudi Arabia, a country that is experiencing immigration at a tremendous rate. Such a study could help to shed light on immigration issues in the Middle East in general, and in Saudi Arabia particularly, specifically in comparison to the situation in Western countries.
Email: ea486@sussex.ac.uk
- Hafeez Ullah
What school are you in? Global Studies
What is the title of your thesis?
Securitization of the Pakistan-Afghanistan Border and its Impacts on the Cross-border Tribal Communities
What’s it about?
This study examines how the security-centric border regime is lived and experienced by those who live in border areas. In doing so, I expand on the discussions that have previously focused on European and North American border fencing. I explore the dynamic nature of ‘traditional’ tribal society’s interactions in the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland, shaped by European colonialism, Pakistani state-nation-building, and Global security narratives in the context of the war on terror.
What motivated you to do your PhD on a migration topic?
My interest in borders is rooted in the stories I grew up hearing from my parents. My father would regularly cross the Pakistan-Afghanistan border every year to sell pine grown on our family’s land, which stretches across that border. My mother, who came from the same tribe but lived in Birmal (Afghanistan), would also contribute to the discussion, recalling stories of her childhood travelling from across the border with her brothers without realizing that they even crossed an international border. However, it was later during my MPhil that I eventually started examining the borderland more systematically. My engagement with Afghan refugees in Pakistan, particularly while conducting research for the Protracted Displacement Economies project, sharpened my awareness of how dramatically the border had transformed.
Email: hu41@sussex.ac.uk
- Evie Haywood
What school are you in? Global Studies
What is the title of your thesis?
The role of dominant (non)religious value systems in the belonging experiences of ‘others’: The case of mainstream UK Secondary Schools
What’s it about?
Work on the role of religion in migrant belonging tends to focus on either the extent to which the content of religions with which the ‘host’ context is affiliated are compatible with ‘inclusion’, or the impact of the perceived content of the religions associated with those to be ‘included’. I am challenging this focus on the content of religion to argue that the reflexivity with which a religion is held is more impactful on the experiences of ‘others’ than the content of that religion. My research also demonstrates that this similarly applies to non-religious worldviews, building on our increasing understanding of the prominence of non-religion in Britain today.
What motivated you to do your PhD on a migration topic?
Working as a Religious Studies teacher and Social-Emotional support worker in schools for several years drew my attention to a paradox – with reference to both religion and to students’ broader differences – between staff’s significant efforts and sincere intentions towards inclusion and the persistent lived experiences of exclusion faced by many students of (perceived) non-dominant identities. My work seeks to offer insights into the unconscious dynamics that limit schools’ efforts towards inclusion so that existing sincere efforts can be harnessed and realised and as many students as possible begin life with a secure sense of belonging in society. Migration is a topic in which there exists real and immediate challenges but also real and significant capacity to address those challenges provided it is given serious and critical attention.
Email: e.haywood@sussex.ac.uk
- Auranzaib Noor Ali
What school are you in? Global Studies
What is the title of your thesis?
The Role of Transnational Ismaili Muslim Institutions in Migrant Integration and Resilience Building in London
What’s it about?
My research explores how transnational Ismaili Muslim institutions support migrant integration and resilience-building in London. It examines how these institutions operate beyond religious practice, functioning as spaces for social support, cohesion, and the negotiation of belonging and identity in migration contexts.
What motivated you to do your PhD on a migration topic?
My motivation for this research is rooted in over a decade of professional and research engagement with the Ismaili community across Pakistan, the Middle East, East Africa, and Europe. This PhD builds on my previous research on religious pluralism and inclusivity among Ismaili faith teachers, as well as on the role of Ismaili community institutions in enhancing the subjective wellbeing of Ismaili widows in Pakistan, conducted during my undergraduate and postgraduate studies. These experiences, alongside my Master’s degree in Education with a focus on Muslim Civilisation from University College London, shaped my interest in how religious institutions support integration, foster resilience, and strengthen community development in migration contexts.
Email: an613@sussex.ac.uk
- Aris Dougas Chavarria
What school are you in? Global Studies
What is the title of your thesis?
“The Sea is History”: Migrant Disappearance/Death at Sea and Border Violence en Route to the Canary Islands
What’s it about?
My project looks at disappearances in boat migration from Africa's north/west coast to the Canarian archipelago. It zooms into the act of witnessing border violence and its (lack of) traces; the impact it has on coastal communities; and the materiality of islands, the Atlantic, and ships.
What motivated you to do your PhD on a migration topic?
The migration corridor to the Canary Islands is the deadliest one globally, yet very understudied. All lives are equally valuable, and conducting research on disappearance is a way of acknowledging and mourning migrant lives.
Read more about Aris on the or his .
Email: A.Dougas-Chavarria@sussex.ac.uk
- Mengwei Wang
What school are you in? Global Studies
What is the title of your thesis?
Beyond Chinatown: Social Mobility and Capital Negotiation among Chinese Restaurant Owners in Britain
What’s it about?
By focusing on the specific operation, mutual contestation, and conversion of social capital within the catering field, and situating this within the context of structural changes, the research aims to reveal the differentiated paths and internal mechanisms of social mobility for this community.
What motivated you to do your PhD on a migration topic?
How do experiences evolve from making a living to transcending it, from mere settlement to active community building, and ultimately to personal development? These are the questions that haunt me.
Email: mw696@sussex.ac.uk
- Saki Yubuuchi
What school are you in? Global Studies
What is the title of your thesis?
(Non)Practices of Social Remittances among Egyptian Student Returnees
What’s it about?
My research focuses on social remittance practices among Egyptian student returnees from the UK. It explores how their context of migration would influence the commitment of transfer practices of social remittances.
What motivated you to do your PhD on a migration topic?
I have been interested in studying the circulation of values, particularly between the Middle East and the “West.” This led me to focus on migrants and social remittances, examining what kinds of values and practices are brought back, the motivations behind them, and the processes and outcomes involved.
Email: sy380@sussex.ac.uk
Completed doctoral theses (from 2010 onwards)*
The list below includes links to over 80 completed doctoral theses. Our doctoral alumni can be found in universities, research centres, international organisations, non-profit organisations, and more, across the world.
- 2026
- 2025
Rebecca Mitchell-Tomkins
Julia Goodwin
Arunima Shandilya
Yvonne Salt
Esther Bartl
Andrea Kis
Emilia Helen Melossi
Poramintorn Vongtrirat
- 2024
Francisca Silitonga
Susie Ballentyne
Mariagiulia Grassilli
Catherine Donaldson
Akua Twumasi-Anokye
Ceren Yuksel
- 2023
Daina Grosa
Nathali Arias
Chu-Chun Yu
Nasreen Akhter
Clelia Compas
Alex Fusco
Marianela Barrios Aquino
Caterina Mazzilli
- 2022
Debbie Samaniego
Kristina Ilieva
Jae Hyun Park
Emma Soye
- 2021
Isilay Taban
Colleen McNeil-Walsh
Millicent Ayeh-Danquah Koomson
- 2020
Thabani Mutambasere
Esra Demirkol Colosio
Bashair Ahmed
Pattraporn Chuenglertsiri
Anna Wharton
Md Farid Miah
- 2019
Ireena Nasiha Ibnu
Rachel Pauline Larkin
Alia Noor
Joniada Barjaba
- 2018
Nabeela Ahmed
Idil Akinci
Dora Isabel Martins Sampaio
Eva-Maria Egger
Amy Clarke
Rachele Bezzini
Cecilia Poggi
Reinhard Schweitzer
Marlon Anthony Bristol
Lorena Guzman Elizalde
Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson
- 2017
Birce Demiryontar
Eveline Odermatt
Soumyadeep Banerjee
Markus Roos Breines
Jonathan Sward
Carmen Guadalupe León Himmelstine
Susanne Melde
Jill Ahrens
- 2016
Chrysoula Karli
Katie Wright-Higgins
Sajida Zareen Ally
Maxmillan Martin
- 2015
Farai Jena
Tom Chambers
Wen-Ching Ting
Katie McQuaid
- 2014
Barbara Johnston
Jade Cemre Erciyes
Erica Consterdine
Kalle Hirvoven
David Rubyan-Ling
Vesselina Ratcheva
Kirat Randhawa
Elisa Pascucci
Katherine Nielsen
Yacine Korid
Debbie Humphry
- 2013
Linnet Taylor
Dorothea Mueller
Maria Abranches
Vanessa Iaria
Gunjan Sondhi
Franziska Meissner
Ines Hasselberg
- 2012
Daniela DeBono
Canan Ezel Tabur
Francesca Conti
Christina Oelgemöller
Kerstin Schmidt-Verkerk
Christopher David Smith
Cora Mezger
Wael Mansour
Katrin Maier
Anusree Biswas-Sasidharan
Diana Mata-Codesal
Giuseppe Scotto
Nadine Voelkner
- 2011
Zana Vathi
Maria Josefina Perez Espino
Janine Teerling
- 2010
Anna Arnone
Prosper Asima
Caridad T. Sri Tharan
Benjamin Zeitlyn
* This may not be a full list, as doctoral researchers are spread across multiple departments in the University. If you, or one of your supervisees, are missing, please get in touch with the SCMR team.
