Our Community
The MIGS community includes academics from across Manchester Metropolitan University, postgraduate students,
visiting scholars, student interns, and community collaborators. You can learn more about us below.
MIGS
Leadership Team
Benedicte Brahic
MIGS co-convenor, Migration, Mobilities and Diasporas co-lead, Global Education and Youth co-lead
Benedicte’s work explores the local, personal, and intimate expressions of global neoliberal processes with a particular focus on how women navigate mobilities, bordering, and belonging across migration, labour, and education contexts.
Caitlin Nunn
MIGS co-convenor, Migration, Mobilities and Diasporas co-lead, Collaborative and Creative Research co-lead
Caitlin’s research focuses on collaborating with communities – and especially migrant-background young people – to understand and address issues of belonging, justice, and care in diverse contexts including museums, sport, health, and the natural environment.
Benjamin Bowman
Environmental Justice co-lead
Benjamin works with young people to learn about young people’s lives, young people’s politics and young people’s activism in democracies. Right now, he is especially working with young people to explore how young people make sense of – and take action on – climate change.
Nazneen Ismail
Global Education and Youth co-lead
Nazneen’s research centres around the systemic inequalities faced by students from racially minoritised, migrant, and other marginalised backgrounds, within the context of higher education. She is currently developing innovative quantitative research methods for socially just research.
Sarah Linn
Migration, Mobilities and Diasporas co-lead, Collaborative and Creative Research co-lead
Sarah’s research explores migrant and refugee experiences, navigations and negotiations of socio-spatial belonging and (in)justice across time and space through collaborative and creative methodologies. She has worked with communities in Lebanon, Jordan and the UK.
Daniel Marshall
Global Justice lead
Daniel’s research is focused on criminal justice. His work has drawn on global perspectives exploring policy-related intervention on topics such as privacy, sexual offending, social justice, youth justice, children’s rights, looked after children (LAC), children not in education, employment, or training (NEET), military-connected children, mentoring and coaching skills.
MIGS
Doctoral Researchers
Nobila Bano
Collaborative and Creative Research
co-lead
Thesis title: The role of intergenerational knowledge transfer in mediating British South Asian families’ relationships to/with the natural environment
Nobila’s work uncovers how British South Asian families in North West England experience and shape urban nature spaces, blending sociocultural insights with creative, community-led research.
Kieran Boden
Collaborative and Creative
Research co-lead
Thesis title: “Come to us, we are here” – methodological applications of co-production theory in the creation of community and youth-led nature interventions
I seek to empower people from underserved communities to co-create bespoke interventions to create more equitable access to nature.
Jennifer Lavender
Environmental Justice co-lead
Thesis title: Disrupting flood risk management narratives: Youth-centred research into education, action and resilience in flood affected places
Jennifer’s research interests focus on young people and environmental challenges. Her thesis looks at how engaging young people in flood risk management and resilience building can improve community level engagement, by using youth-centred, creative research methods.
Behnaz Tareh
Migration, Mobilities and Diasporas
co-lead
Thesis title: Lived experiences of Iranian female asylum seekers: exploring risks of and resistance to post migration exploitation
I am a PhD researcher with a migrant background and experience in social work and outreach support. My research interests centre on female migrants, particularly asylum seekers and refugees.
MIGS
Visiting Scholars
Ramon Spaaij
Professor of Sociology, Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia
Global Chair, Manchester Metropolitan University
Ramón Spaaij is a Professor of Sociology, investigating complex social problems, finding solutions that help create and sustain thriving communities.
Professor Niloufar Pourzand
Professor, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, Canada; practitioner and consultant
Dr. Niloufar Pourzand is a Professor of Practice with extensive UN/UNICEF experience across multiple countries including Afghanistan, Iran, Bangladesh, and Jordan. Her expertise centres on children’s rights, women’s rights, refugee rights, and international development, with specialized focus on gender, education, forced displacement, and conflict in humanitarian contexts.
MIGS
Student Interns
Ayisha (Ayi) Adetoro (BSc Sociology with Quantitative Methods): Research assistant Internationalisation of the student experience project.
Muse Harper (BA Criminology): Research assistant and event coordinator, MIGS Innovative methods in migration research one-day event
Anugrah Ramson (Masters in Public Administration): Research assistant and event coordinator, MIGS ‘innovative methods in migration research’ one-day event
Gloria Solinas (BSc (Hons) Web and UX Design): Web Designer, Higher Educational Attainment Inequalities and Single-Parent Households in South Africa (HEAPS)
Libby Washington (BSc (Hons) Sociology and Criminology): Research assistant (data analysis and co-authorship), Voices of the Future – Treescapes
Mariam Zorba (BA (Hons) Architecture): Associate Guest Editor, Special Issue of Journal of Applied Youth Studies, ‘The ethics and politics of co-authoring in research with young people: Possibilities and dilemmas’