2013/14 EDITORIAL BOARD
GEORGIA COLE
Co-Editor-in-Chief and Academic Articles Editor
Georgia’s interests lie in the political economy of refugee protection issues. Her Doctorate at the University of Oxford, commencing in October 2012, focuses on how the politics of interacting and competing institutional legitimacies impacts upon refugee protection. This follows on from her thesis for the MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies which looked at the influence of interacting legitimacies on the implementation and international reception of the Cessation Clause for Rwandan refugees. She has consequently spent a summer interning with UNHCR Ghana to experience first-hand the implementation of the Comprehensive Strategy and Cessation Clause for Liberian refugees. Her undergraduate degree is a BA in Geography from the University of Cambridge. During this period her research interest was on neoliberalism and resurgent racism in post-Amin Uganda. She currently volunteers (and drinks lots of tea) with refugee women from Northern Uganda based in Oxford.
KATE OGG
Co-Editor-in-Chief and Law Monitor Editor
Kate’s primary area of scholarship is the criminalisation of asylum seekers and refugees and, in particular, the intersections between criminal and refugee law. She holds a Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) from Griffith University, Australia. In 2012 she completed an MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies with Distinction at the University of Oxford. As part of her recent research, she conducted a feminist, interdisciplinary and comparative examination of exclusion of women from the refugee regime on the grounds of criminality. Her research indicated that the legal frameworks adopted to assess exclusion in the UK and USA do not adequately address the causes of female offending. She is currently working in litigation at Cooper Grace Ward Lawyers.
MAAIKE GRAAF
Policy Monitor Editor
Maaike’s main interests lie in the politics and ethics of European asylum and migration policies. She has written on return policies for unaccompanied minor asylum seekers and most recently conducted research related to the asylum dimension of the European Neighbourhood Policies. In addition to an MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies from the University of Oxford, Maaike holds an MA degree in Philosophy from the University of Groningen. Currently, she works as Editor-in-Chief of ‘Asiel&Migrantenrecht’, a Dutch journal on Asylum and Migration Law.
SASKIA BLUME
Policy Monitor Editor
Saskia holds an MSc in Migration Studies (Dist) from the University of Oxford and a BA from Sciences Po Paris. Her current main interest lies in the policy response to ‘human trafficking’. In her MSc thesis, she explored how adult men do not fit the frame of the ‘ideal victim of trafficking’ which is underlying much of the current depictions of ‘human trafficking’. She has lived in Vietnam for two years where she worked for the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Her main focus was on the research component of the One UN Gender Joint Program, notably on an exploratory research on trafficking in boys in Vietnam. She has been volunteering as Research Coordinator Asia with Asylos, a web-based organisation which provides background research for lawyers of asylum seekers in Europe. From October 2012, she will be working as a Carlo Schmid Fellow in the Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour at the headquarters of the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Geneva.
JANOSCH KULLENBERG
Field Editor
Janosch Kullenberg’s interest lies at the cross-section between conflict, displacement, and forms of intervention. For his Master’s thesis at Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre, he investigated the institutional overlaps regarding the protection of civilians during peacekeeping operations. Janosch also holds a BA in Politics and Development from Humboldt University (Berlin) and IEP Paris (Sciences Po). He has extensive experience in development and humanitarian work in the African Great Lakes Region. Notably, as a Junior Expert in a transitional aid project of the German Technical Cooperation (GTZ), he developed and implemented conflict transformation activities in South Kivu (DR Congo). Over the next years, Janosch will continue to contribute to the dialogue between theory and practice through applied research as a consultant, research assistant, and prospective Ph.D. student.
YVONNE SU
Field Editor
Yvonne holds an MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies from the University of Oxford and a BA Honours in International Development in the University of Guelph. Currently, she is undertaking a Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Toronto. Her MSc dissertation was focused on how INGOs politically represented the relationship between climate change and displacement. Her research included interviews with various INGOs such as Oxfam, CARE International, Norwegian Refugee Council and Christian Aid, and members of UNHCR, IOM and the IFRC. She found that despite allegations that INGO’s are often alarmist or ‘maximalist’ in their representations of climate change and displacement, her research found that some INGOs strategically took a ‘mini-maximalist’ approach in order to build consensus on the issue. She has a continued interest in climate change and displacement and other issues of forced migration.
ISAAC JENKINS
First Hand Editor
Isaac Jenkins is currently a doctoral student in Political Science at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. A native of Los Angeles, he earned an MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies as a Weidenfeld Scholar at Oxford and a BA in International Relations from Pomona College. His work and research experience includes a variety of educational and development positions in eight countries. His current research projects focus on international responses to forced migration crises, environmental change and human mobility, African refugees in Israeli society, and the interaction between micro-level conflict dynamics and refugee law.
JANEEN SAWATZKY
First Hand Editor
Janeen Sawatzky has been involved with refugee issues since her undergraduate degree in International Development at the University of Toronto. Her focus is Burmese refugees in Thailand and has spent a year working in refugee camps along the border while conducting research for her undergraduate thesis. Undertaking her MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies at Oxford, Janeen continued to focus on Burmese refugees, exploring Thai refugee policy and the economic relationship between the two countries.
TESS HELLGREN
Law Monitor Editor
Tess holds an MSc in Migration Studies from Oxford. Her field of interest centres on the socio-legal aspects of migration, particularly the ways in which cultural context and policy frameworks intersect to impact migrants’ lives. Her dissertation focused on the cultural construction and transnational implications of Danish marriage migration restrictions. While at Oxford, she also volunteered as a paralegal working with asylum seekers, and she is now serving as a researcher-writer for the Oxford Lawyers Without Borders project supporting the UN Special Rapporteur on Trafficking in Persons. Previously, Tess obtained her BA in Social Studies from Harvard University, where she specialised in transnational studies of culture and identity and studied abroad at Sciences Po Paris. She is currently employed as a Research Assistant with the Defence and Security team at RAND Europe in Cambridge.
ANGELA PILATH
Academic Articles Editor
Angela is currently studying for a DPhil in International Development at the University of Oxford. Her doctoral research focuses on the politics of environmental displacement. She is particularly interested in how, and with what effect, epistemic communities gain access to and influence the development of normative-institutionalist measures to protect persons displaced by natural disasters, including those caused by climate change. Geographically, she is interested in cases of environmental displacement occurring in the broad regions of Oceania, the African Great Lakes, and South Asia. Angela has previously lectured at the University of Nijmegen, coordinating the ‘United Nations and Multilateral Diplomacy: Theory and Practice’ programme provided by the United Netherlands organisation. She holds an MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies from the University of Oxford, a minor in International Relations from Sciences Po Aix-en-Provence, and a BA in European Studies from Maastricht University.