The Oxford Migration Studies Society
OMSS COMMITTEE | 8 MAY 2021 | OXFORD MIGRATION CONFERENCE 2021
Meet the wonderful team of graduate students behind the Oxford Migration Conference. It has been an honour to work with these amazing organisers and guest editors on the Conference special issue of Routed Magazine!
Isabella Little
OMSS CO-PRESIDENT
Isabella is a master's student from Michigan studying Refugee and Forced Migration. She is passionate about reproductive justice, especially in detention environments. When she's not planning the conference, she loves to dance, write, hike, and cook for her friends. After the programme, she plans to be trained as a doula and work in advocacy.
Sarah Zellner
OMSS CO-PRESIDENT
Sarah is currently studying for an MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies at the University of Oxford. A political scientist by training, she is passionate about refugee and human rights law and is currently researching the human rights of rejected asylum seekers in Europe. She enjoys (preparing) Mediterranean food, swimming in any temperature and being awake at random times to get this conference going.
Guadalupe Chávez
OMSS COMMITTEE MEMBER / EDITOR
Guadalupe is a DPhil student at the Department of Politics and International Relations where she is currently exploring why countries of origin change the scope of their return migration policies over time with evidence from Mexico. Guadalupe hold's a Master's in politics from the New School for Social Research and was a 2018-2019 Fulbright research scholar in Mexico City. Her research interest are in return migration, citizenship regimes, and qualitative methods.
Jasper Julius Humpert
IT OFFICER / EDITOR
Jasper is a interdisciplinary researcher positioned at the intersection of critical geography and social sciences. Interested in the materialities of memory construction, the possiblities resting within experimentation and public engagement, he is currently researching how new open-source investigative techniques can inform the construction of truth and fact-finding in the field of environmental violence and human rights defence. Jasper is currently obtaining a MSc at the Department of Geography at the University of Oxford.
Charley Katan
IT OFFICER / EDITOR
Charley Katan is a 23-year old Londoner, currently studying MSc Migration Studies at the University of Oxford. Charley is an experienced informal educator, and the co-founder of Veranenu, a grassroots, egalitarian Jewish community that meets for monthly services around London.
Philippa Soderberg
WEBMASTER
Philippa is currently completing her MSc in Migration Studies at the University of Oxford. Her dissertation explores the introduction of citizenship tests in Sweden and surrounding political discourse on membership and belonging. Her work background includes interning at the Refugee and Migrant department for Amnesty International in Stockholm and working at Kompis Sverige, an NGO focused on connecting locals and newly arrived migrants in Sweden. She most recently worked as language and homework support for unaccompanied minors and young asylum seekers in Stockholm, which she hopes to return to after graduation.
Giovanni Penna
SECRETARY
I am currently completing my MSc in Migration Studies and I am interested in the politics of humanitarianism and the Mediterranean. My dissertation focuses on the visibilisation of the Mediterranean border by non-governmental search and rescue groups. Last year, I graduated from the University of Glasgow with a degree in Geography. Organising this conference has been a great opportunity to discover new creative ways of thinking about borders.
Assad Asil Companioni
TREASURER
Assad is currently a MSc in Migration Studies student at the University of Oxford. His current research project is on how sociocultural "immigrant integration" has been understood in policy documents and by academics, with an aim to outline the analytical limitations and problems of the concept as it stands in its various apprehensions. The aim is to develop, if it proves to be possible, a theoretical model of what is called sociocultural integration that avoids the problems identified in policy documents and existing academic approaches to it.
Trinh Truong
SOCIAL MEDIA MANAGER
Trinh is currently pursuing an MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies at the University of Oxford, where she researches theories of citizenship, refugee resettlement, and refugeehood. She has worked to resettle refugees, to bail immigrants out of detention, and to organize sanctuary networks. She resettled in Utica, New York from Vietnam at the age of 3. She holds a BA in Political Science from Yale University and a Certificate in Human Rights Studies from Yale Law School.
Sumedha Choudhury
EDITOR
Sumedha is pursuing her MSc in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies at the Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford. Prior to this, she worked as an Assistant Research Coordinator followed by Refugee Status Determination (RSD) Assistant at UNHCR India.
Lauren Brown
EDITOR
I am a MSc student in Migration Studies at ODID, and a future Politics PhD student at the University of Bristol, with an interest in British politics, nationalism and migration.
Ellie Thompson
EDITOR
I am an MSc student in Migration Studies at ODID with a background in geography. I'm interested in migration in the context of crises, particularly climate migration and COVID.
Sophia Carpentier
EDITOR
Sophia is a master's student in the Refugee and Forced Migration Studies program, particularly interested in studying refugee resettlement and employment in the United States. From Woodbury, Minnesota, she enjoys gardening, painting, and befriending stray cats.
