- LESSONS LEARNED FROM THE INDOCHINESE REFUGEE MOVEMENT IN CANADA IN THE 1970s AND 1980s
- 2024 Winners of CARFMS/LERRN Lived Experiences of Displacement Essay Award
- The Most Fundamental Human Right to Peace and the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) the Forcibly Displaced
- Spring Newsletter, Issue 13
- Announcing winners of the 2024 CARFMS Essay Contest
2023-2025 Executive Committee
PRESIDENT (2023-25)
STEPHANIE STOBBE, MANITOBA
Gender: Female
Biography: Dr. Stephanie P. Stobbe is the Chair and an Associate Professor in Conflict Resolution Studies at Menno Simons College (a College of CMU) at the University of Winnipeg, and a leading expert on Southeast Asian processes of dispute resolution. As an active educator, trainer, and ADR practitioner, she has worked and conducted research in Canada, United States, South America, Europe, India, Asia, and Southeast Asia. Over the last few years, she has facilitated and conducted conflict resolution and peacebuilding seminars and workshops in Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand, with political leaders, NGOs, and civil societies. Her recent books include: Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding in Laos: Perspective for Today’s World (2015) and Conflict Resolution in Asia: Mediation and Other Cultural Models (2018). In 2016, Stephanie chaired CARFMS 9th Annual Conference on Freedom of Movement of refugees and forced migrants that brought 350 participants from over 20 countries. Currently, she is the Lexington Publishing Series Book Editor for Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding in Asia. Her current research projects include conducting oral histories of former refugees from Southeast Asia and their resettlement journeys, and examining European and International policies and their impact on refugees and forced migrants fleeing to Europe. Stephanie serves on the Executive of Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (CARFMS) and the Expert Advisory Board for Asia Pacific Refugee Studies (CAPRS) at Auckland University as well as the Board of ADR Institute Manitoba and ADR Institute of Canada.
VICE PRESIDENT (2023-25)
JAMES C. SIMEON, ONTARIO
Gender: Male
Biography: Dr. James C. Simeon, LLM (Cantab), Associate Professor, School of Public Policy and Administration,York University, Toronto, Canada, is a past President of the Canadian Association of Refugees and Forced Migration Studies (CARFMS) and Director-at-Large. He serves as the Coordinator of the International Association for Refugee and Migration Judges’ (IARMJ) Inter-Conference Working Party Process. His areas of research includes international refugee law, human rights law, humanitarian law, criminal law, and public policy and administration. He publishes in these areas of research and organizes and leads academic and professional conferences, symposia, and workshops. Prior to joining the faculty at York University, he served on the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB) and as the Executive Director of the International Association of Refugee Law Judges (IARLJ), the predecessor of the IARMJ.
SECRETARY (2021-24)
KIRA WILLIAMS, ONTARIO
Gender: genderqueer trans woman
Biography: I’m trans, genderqueer, two-spirit and a critical human geographer who was recently a post-doctoral fellow at Wilfrid Laurier University. My research focuses on international migration, borders, political geography, analytical methodology and statistics. I graduated from my PhD in October 2018, with a thesis studying the use of semi-secret military operations to control the movement of migration by boat in the Central Mediterranean Sea. My advisor was Dr. Alison Mountz .
I’m a data scientist, policy analyst and statistician specialising in statistical programming, mathematical statistics and social science. I program and teach statistics in R, Python, SQL, J and Stata languages. I also work with geographical information systems (GIS) through R and ArcGIS. I have experience with all kinds of statistical software and Unix-like systems. I was formally trained in mathematical statistics, econometrics and spatial analysis.
I specialise in and teach statistics, data science and public policy analysis to graduate students. In my policy-related research, I’ve had the privilege of working with many partners, such as the World Bank, OECD, International Organization for Migration, UN Women, UNODC, HEQCO, Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation, as well as the Canadian federal and Ontario provincial governments. As a statistician, I employ data-driven and evidence-based methods in policymaking. Through this work, I’ve also had experience managing teams of researchers.
As a programmer, I specialise in designing and implementing my own algorithms using a language’s primitives. In R, for instance, I am adept at being able to create novel solutions to difficult problems by writing unique code from the base package. This makes me well-suited for approaching complex or under-studied tasks.
TREASURER (2021-24)
ANNA PURKEY, ONTARIO
Gender: Female
Biography: Dr. Anna Purkey is an Assistant Professor and Director of the Human Rights program at St. Paul’s University College at the University of Waterloo. Previously she worked as an Evaluation Measurement Officer at the IRB (2020), held the position of Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Refugee Studies at York University and was the 2019-2020 Director of the Centre’s internationally renowned Summer Course on Forced Migration and Refugees. Dr. Purkey taught as Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology and Legal Studies at St. Jerome’s University in the University of Waterloo for three years and was the 2015-2016 Gordon F. Henderson Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Human Rights Research and Education Centre at the University of Ottawa. She completed her Doctorate of Civil Law at McGill University in 2015. She holds a B.C.L./LL.B. from McGill University as well as a Masters in Law from University of Toronto and is a member of the Quebec Bar Association. Previously, she held the position of legal counsel at the Department of Justice Canada. She is a member of the board of directors of Action Réfugiés Montréal. She has been an invited speaker on numerous occasions, including before Global Affairs Canada, the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration and at the Canadian Council for Refugees Annual Consultation. She was also awarded the 2016 Lisa Gilad Prize by the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration.
Her research focuses on both domestic and international refugee law, with a special emphasis on protracted refugee situations and themes of human capabilities, legal empowerment, human dignity, vulnerability, governance, and transitional justice.
COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER (2021-24)
SHAYNE WONG, MANITOBA
Gender: Female
Biography: Shayne Wong is a doctoral student in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Manitoba. Her research focuses on gender, peace and security, ethnopolitical conflicts, and peacebuilding and how these intersect with refugee and forced migration contexts. Her current research is centred on the roles and contributions of diaspora communities in peacebuilding initiatives. Shayne has been involved in research projects in Canada, Greece, Myanmar, and the Great Lakes region of Africa. She has worked with various organizations and networks in Canada and around the world and is a member of the Rohingya Human Rights Network team.
POLICY PARTNERSHIP OFFICER (2023-25)
AZIZ RAHMAN, MANITOBA
Gender: Male
Biography: Aziz Rahman completed a PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Manitoba. He holds an honours degree in sociology (Bangladesh) and three master’s degrees: Sociology (Bangladesh), Regional Development Planning (Germany and the Philippines), and Criminology (Canada). He has long been engaged in multidisciplinary research, teaching, and human development work. Aziz’s PhD thesis explores refugee economic integration in Canada. His research is aimed to significantly contributing to government policymaking circles by identifying factors affecting the successful labor market integration of resettled refugees in Canada. Aziz has published books, peer reviewed articles and book chapters and presented in conferences on various topics including the refugee integration issues; the public views of crime and policing; Islamist terrorism; ethnic violence; colonialism; and hate crime. Aziz has served on the board of Canadian Association of Refugees and Forced Migration Studies (CARFMS) since 2016.
STUDENT DIRECTOR (2021-24)
RACHEL MCNALLY, ONTARIO
Gender: Female
Biography: Rachel is a PhD student in Political Science at Carleton University, with specializations in International Relations and Public Policy. Her doctoral research under the supervision of Prof. James Milner examines the resettlement of refugees with disabilities in Canada, past and present. She also studies Canada’s refugee sponsorship programs. Rachel currently works as a Research Assistant with the Prentice Institute for Global Population and Economy at the University of Lethbridge on an IRCC-funded project called “From Anecdotes to Evidence: Research-Based Recommendations for Supporting Rural and Remote Sponsorship.” She also works as the Knowledge Mobilization and Translation Officer for the Local Engagement Refugee Research Network (LERRN), an international research partnership involving scholars, refugees, and civil society organizations. Rachel has also been involved with the Migration and Diaspora Student Society at Carleton University, leading academic conferences for graduate students doing migration-related research. Prior to starting her PhD and MA degrees at Carleton, Rachel completed her BA with Honours in Politics at Acadia University in Nova Scotia, the province where she was raised and where she first got involved with refugees volunteering as a refugee sponsor.
STUDENT AFFAIRS OFFICER (2023-25)
CASSIE DONG, MANITOBA
Gender: Female
Biography: Ha Bich (Cassie) Dong (she/her) is a Ph.D. student in Peace and Conflict Studies at University of Manitoba. Her research focuses on engaged peacebuilding (peacebuilders as healers), women’s peacebuilding, and decolonization in education and development in Vietnam and North America. She is currently a Research Assistant on the Hearts of Freedom Project and the Managing Editor at At The Forks, an open-access journal for writings on the intersection of Indigenous rights and human rights. Outside of her studies, Ha serves on several boards of directors and committees at different organizations across Canada, the United States, Vietnam, Kenya, and Nepal in areas of education, human rights, and sustainable development.
PRACTITIONER AND ADVOCACY OFFICER (2023-25)
BRIAN DYCK, MANITOBA
Gender: Male
Biography: Brian has been the National Migration and Resettlement Program Coordinator at Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Canada since February 2015. One of his main jobs there is managing MCC’s Sponsorship Agreement for Refugee Resettlement. In addition, he also co-chairs MCC’s Migration Standing Committee that looks at the organizations global program related to migration and how communication and collaboration can be realized in the organization on migration issues. Before that he was Refugee Assistance Program Coordinator at the MCC Manitoba office for seven and a half years. His primary work at MCC has been helping churches think about refugee sponsorship and the broader issues around forced displacement.
Brian was chair of the Canadian National Refugee Sponsorship Agreement Holder Association (SAH Association) from 2012-2019. He has also worked as a consultant with the Global Refugee Sponsorship Initiative and been on planning committees for UNHCR Annual Tripartite Consultation on Resettlement.
DIRECTORS AT LARGE
SORPONG POEU, ONTARIO (2023-26)
Gender: Male
Biography: Current positions: Professor of Global Peace and Security Studies, Department of Politics and Public Administration, Toronto Metropolitan University; Toronto, Canada.
Current Affiliations: Member, Eminent Persons Group at the Asian Political and International Studies Association; Fellow of McLaughlin College, York University; Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Cambodian Institute for Peace and Cooperation; Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Cambodian Development Research Institute.
Former administrative and academic positions and affiliations: President of Science for Peace, based at the University of Toronto. Chair of the Department of Politics and Public Administration, Toronto. Chair of the Department of Political Science, University of Winnipeg (Manitoba); Chair of the Advisory and Recruitment Committee for The Manitoba Chair of Global Governance Studies – a joint program between the University of Winnipeg and the University of Manitoba; Prior to these academic appointments, Professor of International Security at Sophia University in Tokyo (Japan); Canada-ASEAN Fellow and Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (Singapore).
Major publications include books, book chapters and journal articles. Major books include Global Public Governance: Toward World Government? (World Scientific 2022) Peace and Security in Indo-Pacific Asia: IR Perspectives in Context (Routledge 2022. Forthcoming), UN Governance: Peace and Human Security in Cambodia and Timor-Leste (Co-authored: Palgrave Macmillan, 2020), Human Security Studies: Theories, Methods and Themes (World Scientific and Imperial College Press, 2014); Peace and Security in the Asia-Pacific (Praeger 2010), Human Security in East Asia: Challenges for Collaborative Action, ed. (Routledge 2008), International Democracy Assistance for Peacebuilding: Cambodia and Beyond (Palgrave Macmillan 2007), Intervention and Change in Cambodia: Toward Democracy (St. Martin’s Press, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies and Silkworms, 2001), and Conflict Neutralization in the Cambodia War: From Battlefield to Ballot-box (Oxford University Press 1997).
Regional editor of a peer-reviewed international journal – The Asian Journal of Peacebuilding (Seoul National University Press, South Korea). Member of the Editorial Board, Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies (Palgrave Macmillan), Peacebuilding, & Advisory Board of International Relations in Southeast Asia (Politics & International Relations: Book Series. Routledge). Member of the peer-reviewed journals: Asian Politics & Policy (Wiley-Blackwell), & Alternate Routes: A Journal of Critical Social Research (Athabasca University Press).
JULIE YOUNG, ALBERTA (2023-26)
Gender: Female
Biography: Dr. Julie Young is Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Critical Border Studies and Assistant Professor in Geography and Environment at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada. Much of her research to date has focused on how migrants and advocates in Canada-US and Mexico-Guatemala border communities interact with and challenge those borders. Her current collaborative project with Grace Wu and Johanna Reynolds is entitled, Remembering Refuge: Between Sanctuary and Solidarity, an open access counter-archive of the Canada-US border as told through the oral histories of Central American and Caribbean refugees and migrant justice advocates working in the Windsor-Detroit and Plattsburgh-Lacolle border regions. Julie is co-editor, with Dr. Susan McGrath, of the open-access book, Mobilizing Global Knowledge: Refugee Research in an Age of Displacement (University of Calgary Press, 2019).
IDIL ATAK, ONTARIO (2021-24)
Gender: Female
Biography: Idil Atak is an associate professor at the Lincoln Alexander School of Law of Toronto Metropolitan University. She received her PhD from the Université de Montréal’s Faculty of Law. The former editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Migration and Border Studies (IJMBS), Idil is a past president of the Canadian Association for Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (CARFMS). Her research interests include irregular migration, the criminalization of migrants, and the protection of the rights of irregular migrants and asylum seekers in Canada. Idil served as a legal expert for the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ankara, Turkey, and as deputy to the Permanent Representative of Turkey to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France.
RABINDRA CHAULAGAIN, NOVA SCOTIA (2021-24)
Gender: Male
Biography: Dr. Rabindra Chaulagain works as an Assistant Professor in the Sociology department at Acadia University. Before he migrated to Canada, he taught at Tribhuvan University and numerous colleges in Nepal for several years. He has been involved in various individual and collaborative research projects concerning power, politics, and refugee discourses. He worked on a project with Dr. Julie Young and one of his colleagues on contested border crossing issues, such as politics, border control, and immigrant management policy, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). His research spans a broad range of social and political issues, including forced migration and refugee studies, critical border studies, race, critical theory, bio/necropolitics, global postcolonialism and indigenous anticolonialism. He enjoys intellectual debate among his colleagues, teachers, and students. Besides his academic responsibilities, Dr. Chaulagain regularly engages in volunteerism and community services.
Lynn Weaver, British Columbia (2023-25)
Gender: Female
Biography: As a scholar-practitioner, Lynn holds an MA in Global Leadership from Royal Roads University (with a research focus on refugee agency and autonomy) and works with the Canadian Refugee Sponsorship Association. A volunteer board director with Social Planning Cowichan, she focuses on poverty reduction strategies, anti-racism, and truth & reconciliation work. Previously, she served nearly a decade as executive director of an immigrant and refugee serving agency on Vancouver Island, BC. She is honoured to have been a recipient of the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Community Service, the Royal Roads University Founder’s Award, and the Eve’s Global Leader award. She underscores her unearned privilege in being able to access higher education and seeks to advance global justice and equitable access to education.
