External affiliated members

  • Ilhan Kaya

    Ilhan Kaya is a human geographer with a PhD from Florida State University. His research focuses on identity politics, migration and mobilities, minority politics, spatial theory, and the politics of knowledge production, with particular attention to Muslim immigration, Turkish and Kurdish diasporas, and authoritarian contexts. He has held academic positions in Turkey, Belgium, Canada, and the United States, including a postdoctoral fellowship at Ghent University and professorships at Yıldız Technical University and Dicle University. He is currently a Remote Visiting Researcher at Wilfrid Laurier University. His work has been published in leading journals such as Geographical Review, Middle East Journal, and Social & Cultural Geography, and he is the author and editor of several books on migration, identity, and geography.

  • Leen De Nutte

    Dr. Leen De Nutte is a Postdoctoral Researcher at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) in Rabat, Morocco, where she supports the activities of the IDRC Research Chair on Forced Displacement in the areas of research, knowledge exchange, teaching, and capacity building. She obtained her PhD in Educational Sciences from Ghent University in 2023. Her doctoral research focused on upbringing in a context of prolonged collective violence in Kitgum District, northern Uganda, with particular attention to the social and relational impact of war and armed conflict, as well as intergenerational dynamics in post-conflict settings. From 2016 to 2021, she was actively involved in the work of CCVS-Uganda, an international NGO dedicated to promoting the mental health of individuals, families, and communities in northern Uganda.

  • Jill Alpes

    Jill Alpes is a legal anthropologist of migration. At Ughent, her research focuses on the work of international human rights lawyers in brokering evidence on pushbacks from European borders. Over the last ten years, Jill has worked at research institutes in the Netherlands, France, Denmark and Germany, as well as for and in collaboration with foundations and human rights organizations, such as Amnesty, Oxfam, DRC and Picum. Her book “Abroad at any cost: Brokering High-risk migration and illegality in West Africa” (Routledge) challenges narratives of smuggling and trafficking and considers the governance of migration from the perspective of individuals and families in a country of departure in West Africa (Cameroon). Jill’s interest in access barriers to asylum and post-return risks have brought her to carry out field research in Europe (France, Netherlands, Greece, Italy), rural and urban Africa (Cameroon, DRC, Mali, Nigeria, Niger) and the Middle East (Turkey, Lebanon).

  • Laura Smith-Khan

    Dr Laura Smith-Khan is the first external affiliated member of CESSMIR. She is Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of New England, Australia. From 2019 to 2024 she was Chancellor’s Research Fellow at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research is interested in the participation of marginalized groups in migration processes. In 2022 she won the Max Crawford Medal, the most prestigious prize in Australia for achievement and promises in the humanities. She co-founded the Law and Linguistics Interdisciplinary Researchers’ Network. In her most recent research Dr Smith-Khan is examining the communication, regulation and education of migration advisors. She has conducted extensive research on language and credibility in asylum procedures and public discourse, and has also worked on a groundbreaking multi-country project on disability in forced migration. She is a member of the Language on the Move research group.