The Global Migration Centre is very happy to welcome four new researchers, Mahbubur Rhaman, Eleanor Davey, Mariana Ferolla and Michelle Bennazzo.
Md. Mahbubur Rahman is an expert and deft researcher on refugee, migration, security and gender issues. A number of his research works including a part of his PhD thesis has already been published nationally and internationally. He worked for more than a decade with national and international organizations including IOM and UNHCR in the field of protection, counter trafficking and external relations. He also taught in a university in Bangladesh. His current postdoctoral fellowship with the Geneva Graduate Institute is on a contemporary topic which has multi faced implications on global migration governance. His research project intersects not only human rights and refugee elements of broader migration regime, but also protection and security issues. His project contains a search for the solution of Rohingya refugee crisis which is a must in order to maintain peace and security in the South and Southeast Asia.
Dr. Rahman has been awarded the Swiss Government Excellence Award for his current project at the Geneva Graduate Institute.
Eleanor Davey is Senior Visiting Researcher and has been awarded an ISRF Independent Scholar Research Fellowship, for which she will be working on a project entitled; Historical Rights and Humanitarian Dilemmas: Caring for Children in Offshore Detention, where she explores how, after a century of work based on the notion of childhood as sacred and outside of politics, the world’s pre-eminent child rights organisation wound up cooperating in the indefinite, traumatic detention of children.
Eleanor’s research explores histories of aid and activism, and how historical perspectives can inform current debates. Her book Idealism beyond Borders: The French Revolutionary Left and the Rise of Humanitarianism, 1954-1988 examined how ideas about responsibility for the suffering of others shaped political and humanitarian engagements in France, including the creation of Médecins Sans Frontières. It jointly received the International Studies Association Ethics Section Book Award for 2017. She has also published work on histories of international humanitarian law and other concepts of intervention, humanitarian engagements with anti-colonial armed groups, and aid in situations of displacement and confinement. In 2016 Eleanor received the Fondation Croix-Rouge Française Prix de Recherche.
Eleanor holds a PhD in history from Queen Mary, University of London, and a BA(Hons) from The University of Melbourne.
Mariana Ferolla Vallandro Do Valle has joined the Global Migration Centre as Research Assistant to Prof. Chetails' Swiss National Science Foundation funded project, entitled: The Impact of Crises on the Global Governance of Migration: Boost or Blow?
Mariana is a PhD candidate at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, where she carries out research on the prohibition of non-discrimination on the enjoyment of economic, social, and cultural rights in relation to migrants. She is a teaching assistant at the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies and a member of the International Law Association’s Committee on International Migration and International Law. Prior to her doctoral studies, Mariana worked as a lawyer in the public law sector and acted as a volunteer at an NGO for migrants’ rights based in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. She holds a Master’s and a Bachelor’s Degree from the Federal University of Minas Gerais. Mariana’s research interests include international refugee law, human rights, international criminal law, and State responsibility.
Michele Benazzo has joined the Global Migration Centre with his recently awarded Swiss National Science Foundation, Doc.ch grant for his project entitled: 'The Forgotten Generation: British Muslim Foreign Fighting in the Bosnian Civil War, 1981-1995'.
Michele is a second-year PhD candidate in International History and Politics. He holds an MA in International Relations from the University of Padova, Italy, and an MLitt in Terrorism and Political Violence from the University of St Andrews, Scotland. His main interest is the interplay between Migration, Integration and Political Violence, and his research intersects History and International Relations to explain transnational violence -specifically, European Muslim foreign fighting. He held seminars and lectures for High School and University students (MA) on these subjects. His research areas are Western Europe, North Africa and the Balkans, and he employs sources in Italian, English, French, Arabic and Bosnian. Before joining the Institute, he completed a one-year Internship at Amaplast-Confindustria, Milan as Security Analyst, and volunteered in Bosnia and Albania. Since 2022.
