Sexual and gender based violence in the refugee crisis: from displacement to arrival (SEREDA)

Europe and Global Challenges Programme 

This funding initiative encourages European and international researchers to work together on important global issues. 

• Find out more about the Europe and Global Challenges Programme 

Volkswagen Stiftung 

This funding initiative encourages European and international researchers to work together on important global issues. 

• Find out more about Volkswagen Stiftung

Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ) 

Riksbankens Jubileumsfond (RJ) is an independent foundation with the goal of promoting and supporting research in the Humanities and Social Sciences. RJ supports interdisciplinary research with an international impact and promotes the free mobility for researchers on an international level and between universities. 

Professor Jenny Phillimore

Founding Director of the Institute for Research into Superdiversity
Professor of Migration and Superdiversity

Professor Jenny Phillimore is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and of the RSA.  Her research interests span refugee integration with a particular focus on gender, health, housing and social networks and access to healthcare in superdiverse neighbourhoods.  She has led multiple research projects for funders including the Economic and Social Research Council, the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the European Union, the Home Office and research foundations.  She frequently appears in the media discussing superdiversity and integration and has advised Governments in the UK, Canada, Australia, and Europe.  Jenny has published widely in leading academic journals such asSocial Science and Medicine, BMJ, Urban Studies, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Policy and Politics Journal of Social Policy

She currently leads two major international projects: Welfare Bricolage examining healthcare seeking behaviours and provision in superdiverse areas (Norface) and SEREDA exploring refugees resilience and vulnerability to sexual and gender based violence in the refugee crisis (Europe and Global Challenges). 

Dr Lisa Goodson

Lecturer, Department of Social Policy, Sociology and Criminology, School of Social Policy

Dr Lisa Goodson co-ordinates social policy research modules at post graduate level as well as teaching and tutoring on undergraduate modules in new migration. She is a major contributor to the PG degree programme in Migration, Superdiversity and Policy.  Lisa has been at the forefront of research exploring the experiences and consequences of migration in the UK and Europe. Common themes that cut across her research and teaching on migration issues include: integration and cohesion, poverty and social exclusion, gender and health, and approaches to welfare provision for migrants in an age of super-diversity. Lisa specialises in qualitative research methodologies and has extensive experience working with a range of community groups. Her work with excluded communities has led to the development of an accredited community research training programme which is a core workstream within the Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS) of which Lisa is a founder member.  This programme aims to develop a longitudinal repository of data on superdiversity and extend the impact of the work undertaken by IRiS. 

She been Principal Investigator on a range of research projects sponsored by a wide range of funders including the European Union, Urban Land Institute, Volkswagen Foundation, Barrow Cadbury Trust, research councils, local and national Governments, charitable trusts and statutory agencies.

Dr Sandra Pertek

Research Fellow, University of Birmingham, UK

Sandra Iman Pertek is a SEREDA Research Fellow and gender specialist with expertise in faith and gender-based violence (GBV) with over a decade’s experience in international development and migration. Her research integrates an intersectional and ecological analysis to explore the intersection of GBV and religion in forced migration, intersectionality and resilience.  She is a mixed-methods researcher and an active contributor to networks dedicated to gender, GBV, faith and forced migration. She leads the Untold (Forced) Migrant Stories project and led the Forced Migration, SGBV and COVID-19 study. She has consulted on behalf of governmental and non-governmental organisations on integration of gender, GBV and faith sensitivity into policy and programmes, and previously served in a leading humanitarian organisation as Senior Policy Adviser on Gender.

Dr Dawn River 

Lecturer in Social Work and MA Programme Director, School of Social Policy

Dawn River is the LGBTIQ Lead for IRiS and a member of the Community and Practitioner Research Programme teaching team. She is also Erasmus Lead and a lecturer in the Department of Social Work and Social Care. Her research interests include: the impact of Brexit on LGBTIQ migrants; same-sex domestic abuse; survivor perspectives; creative and community-based approaches to research. She was a founding member of Broken Rainbow and is a board member of GGLBC – the German LGBTIQ* Business Chamber.

Hoayda Darkal

Research Fellow, School of Social Policy
Researcher, Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS)

Hoayda's research interests start in the field of household economics, childcare, and expand to resilience, Arab refugees, refugee families, and forced displacement. Before moving to the University of Birmingham she was a research assistant in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of Plymouth and worked on an ESRC-AHRC project titled: ”Syrian Artisan Entrepreneurship Project”. She is also completing a PhD on the Resilience of Arab Refugee Families in Plymouth. She has a ResM in Human Geography from the University of Plymouth (2013) and a BSc in Agricultural Engineering from Damascus University (2008).

Pakinam Hassan 

Pakinam is a Ph.D. candidate in Human Geography at the University of Birmingham. Her thesis focused on investigating public participation perceptions in the Egyptian context. She holds a master’s degree in Urban Design and a bachelor’s in architectural engineering from Alexandria University, Egypt. She is an early career researcher with multidisciplinary research interests and background. Her research interests are urban design and planning, with a particular focus on human behaviour and subaltern empowerment, which enabled her to start working as a data analyst and researcher on the SEREDA project in 2019. Since 2013, she has also worked as a teaching assistant at Alexandria University and the University of Birmingham.

Professor Hannah Bradby

Uppsala University, Sweden

Hannah Bradby has been Professor at the Sociology Department, Uppsala University, Sweden since 2013, having previously held a senior lectureship at the University of Warwick, UK. Her research interrogates the links between identity, structure and health with particular reference to racism, ethnicity and religion. Hannah blogs for ‘The Cost of Living’ and is Speciality Chief Editor for Medical Sociology at the open access Sociology Frontiers journal.  Together with Professor Sandra Torres, Hannah leads the Research Group on Welfare and Lifecourse, established in 2012 at Uppsala University’s Sociology Department, bringing together over twenty researchers of healthcare and welfare.

Professor Bernadette McSherry

Melbourne Social Equity Institute, UoM

Professor Bernadette McSherry is the Foundation Director of the Melbourne Social Equity Institute at the University of Melbourne and an Adjunct Professor in the Melbourne Law School and the Faculty of Law, Monash University. She has a BA(Hons), LLB(Hons), LLM from the University of Melbourne, a PhD from York University in Canada and a Grad Dip Psych from Monash University. She has published widely in the fields of mental health law and criminal law. In 2011, she was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Law. In 2016, she was awarded The Mental Health Services (TheMHS) Award for Exceptional Contribution to Mental Health Services.

Dr Cathy Vaughan

Centre for Women’s Health, Gender & Society, Faculty of Medicine, Dental and Health Sciences, UoM

Dr Cathy Vaughan is a Senior Lecturer (Gender and Women’s Health), and Acting Head of the Gender and Women’s Health Unit, at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health. Cathy leads research on gendered health inequalities and violence against women in diverse settings, working primarily with migrant and refugee women, women with disabilities, and young people. 

Current and recent research projects include examining refugee and migrant women's experience of violence and accessing violence-response services in Australia; exploring the role of settlement services in responding to violence against refugee women; participatory action research to understand the role of faith leaders and faith communities in preventing violence against women; and work to build national capacity to measure the prevalence of violence against women in Asia and the Pacific. Cathy also leads the Melbourne Social Equity Institute’s university-wide programme on community-engaged research.

Dr Karen Block

Jack Brockhoff Child Health and Wellbeing Team, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, UoM

Dr Karen Block is Associate Director of the Evidence and Child Health Unit in the Centre for Health Equity, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne. She coordinates the Melbourne Social Equity Institute’s PhD program in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies and is Deputy Director of Researchers for Asylum Seekers.

Karen works on a range of projects involving refugee-background young people, women and families. Her research focuses on social inclusion, health inequalities, gender-based violence, evaluating complex interventions and working in collaborative partnerships with communities and community-based organisations. 

Ms Jeanine Hourani

Centre for Health Equity, University of Melbourne 

Jeanine is a refugee advocate, public speaker, writer, and researcher. Prior to joining the SEREDA team, she held roles at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre in Melbourne; at CARE International in Azraq Refugee Camp, Jordan; and at a Public Policy consulting firm. 

Currently, Jeanine also manages the ‘In My Own Words’ program at Road to Refuge – an organisation that aims to change the narrative around refugees and asylum seekers in Australia by providing platforms for refugee voices to shape mainstream discourse. She is also a board member of Olive Kids – an Australian charity dedicated to improving the lives of Palestinian children living under occupation.

jeanine.hourani@unimelb.edu.au

Dr Saime Ozcurumez

Bilkent University, Turkey  

Dr Saime Ozcurumez (Ph.D., McGill) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and Public Administration at Bilkent University. She was a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies and Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard University (2015-2016) during her sabbatical, where she conducted research on the resilience of health care systems in Turkey in response to mass influx of refugees from Syria. She has been part of many international and national collaborative research projects on cultural diversity and health care systems; livelihood conditions of refugees, social cohesion and international protection and psychosocial support services for refugee populations. She is the founding Director of Human Mobility Processes and Interactions Research Lab at the Faculty of Economic, Administrative and Social Sciences at Bilkent University. 

Dr Selin Akyüz

Bilkent University, Turkey 

Dr Selin Akyüz obtained her Bachelor’s degree from the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University and her Master’s degree from the Department of Political Science at Hacettepe University. She completed her doctoral studies in 2012 in the Department of Political Science at Bilkent University. During 2014-2015 academic year, she conducted her post-doctoral research on gendered perceptions of migration at University of Oxford, International Gender Studies Centre at Lady Margaret Hall. Dr. Akyüz involved in national and international research projects on gender, empowerment, human rights and migration. Her major research interests are critical studies on men and masculinities, gender studies and migration. 

Sara Alsaraf

University of Birmingham, UK 

Sara is a psychiatrist and creative arts therapist. She has worked in the NHS since qualifying as a doctor. As a psychotherapist, she facilitates creative therapeutic groups for people who have suffered trauma or marginalisation. Whilst working with people who had been trafficked, she developed an interest in migrants' experience of healthcare during the refugee journey and resettlement. She is interested in how the many layers of gender based violence, from personal to structural, affect the person and in holistic, survivor-centered responses. 

Sian Thomas

University of Birmingham, UK

Siân is a doctoral student focusing on access to justice in relation to sexual and gender-based violence in the refugee journey. She has MA degrees in Social Work and in Human Rights, and a postgraduate diploma in Social Research. Siân’s professional experience has included work with refugees and undocumented migrants, victims of trafficking, and survivors of torture and other human rights violations. Siân is a registered social worker and currently teaches on qualifying social work programmes, with a particular focus on practice skills, gender-based violence and comparative research. Her previous research has focused on migration, diversity and child welfare.

Hala Nasr

University of Melbourne

Hala Nasr is a gender-based violence responder and advocate, whose past work in Aotearoa, New Zealand (NZ) has included working within a feminist women’s refuge supporting African, Middle Eastern and African migrant and refugee women survivors of domestic and family violence, as well as as implementing the NZ Defence Force’s Operation Respect – a project geared to ending sexual violence in the military – in the Navy, Airforce and Army bases in the Northern region. She is currently conducting her PhD at the University of Melbourne with a focus on responses to gender-based violence in refugee settings.