Introduction
I have 15 years of interdisciplinary qualitative research experience with hard to reach groups (i.e. tribal women, LGBTQI+ persons seeking asylum), including 30 months of fieldwork in India and Germany and my high-impact publications include a prize-nominated monograph published with Cambridge University Press and two recent publications on queer asylum in Germany in Ethnic and Racial Studies (2019) and the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (2020). I am the co-founder and convener of the Queer European Asylum Network, an umbrella organization that centers the voices of LGBTQI+ asylum claimants, refugees and activists in policy discussions on queer migration and asylum in Europe.
I hold a Ph.D. in law and society and an M.A. in sociocultural anthropology, international law, and East Asian art history from University of Zurich. I have taught courses on law and society, transnational feminisms, and intersectionality at Columbia University and City University of New York and was a Visiting Scholar and a Research Fellow at the Center for Gender and Sexuality Law, Columbia Law School. My research received support from the Swiss National Science Foundation, University of Zurich, City University of New York, and the European Commission.
Expert
I am a social anthropologist with over 15 years of experience in leading qualitative research projects on the access to justice of minority groups. As the Principal Investigator on the Horizon 2020-funded research project “Queer Muslim Asylum” (2018-2020), I researched the vulnerabilities of LGBTQI+ asylum claimants within Germany’s asylum system, with a focus on lesbians. Over the last 3 years, I have been engaging in knowledge exchange on the protection needs of LGBTQI+ asylum claimants with the German Federal Ministry and the UNHCR and devised 4 policy briefs in collaboration LGBTQI+ NGOs, ILGA, Transgender Europe, and the Council of Europe. In my role as Principal Investigator, I co-founded the Queer European Asylum Network (QUEAN), an umbrella organization that brings together NGO practitioners, LGBTQI+ refugees, activists, policy makers, and academics.
Fields of expertise: Culture, Gender equality, Migration, Reduction of inequalities / equity / poverty eradication