OUR MISSION
Where We Began
The CRMS logo was created by Fakhraddin Ahmed Abdulla, a talented artist who has spent years living in a refugee camp in Iraq. His design depicts an oceanic topography, rendered in blue tones. At its center, a bird is poised, ready to embark on a long migratory flight. Fakhraddin's work speaks to our mission: of being a critical platform for refugee stories.
OUR MEMBERS
Advisory Board
Our collective is called an Advisory Board, whose members are responsible for establishing the themes of each year's events and facilitating our work.
Ahmed Hamila
is an Assistant Professor of sociology of migration at the University of Montreal (Canada). His research interests include asylum policies, gender and sexuality, human rights and migrations studies
Anh Ngo
is an Associate Professor of Social Work. Her research examines immigrant and refugee experiences, social policy, and multiculturalism in Canada. She focuses on social change through community action and engaged scholarship, informed by her social work practice.
Edward Ou Jin Lee
is an Associate Professor at the Université de Montréal's School of Social Work, studying sexualities, gender, and migration, particularly regarding racialized and migrant LGBTQI+ communities’ access to healthcare. His research focuses on anti-oppressive, decolonial social work through participatory, critical, and community-based methodologies.
Fritz Pino
is an Associate Professor at the University of Regina. Her research focuses on LGBTQ, racialized immigrant, and older adult communities, exploring their navigation of marginalization through bodily performances, affect, and desires. She employs decolonial, qualitative methods and queer diasporic theory to highlight resistance to colonialism and neoliberalism.
Gada Mahrouse
is an Associate Professor at Concordia University’s Simone de Beauvoir Institute. Author of Conflicted Commitments (2014), her work spans critical race studies, feminist praxis, and transnational activism, with a focus on migration and mobility justice.
Laura Madokoro
is a historian and Associate Professor at Carleton University. Author ofElusive Refuge (2016) and co-editor of Dominion of Race (2017), she explores sanctuary in urban settings and contributes to Histoire Sociale and Active History.
Maral Aguilera-Moradipour
is an Assistant Professor of Asian refugee literatures and cultures at Simon Fraser University, having joined in 2024 after earning a PhD at Western University and completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Toronto Scarborough. Their research explores critical refugee studies, Global Asia, and the intersections of diaspora and Indigenous literatures.
Peter Nyers
is a Professor at McMaster University, specializing in refugee and migrant social movements. Author of Irregular Citizenship (2019) and Rethinking Refugees (2006), his research addresses deportation, detention, and global mobility rights.
Thy Phu
is a Distinguished Professor at UTSC, specializing in race, diaspora, and visual justice. Author of Picturing Model Citizens, she co-edits Feeling Photography and Cold War Camera. She is a member of the Royal Society of Canada and co-editor of Trans Asia Photography.
Vinh Nguyen
is an Associate Professor at Renison University College, specializing in critical refugee studies and Asian diasporic literature. His books include Lived Refuge and the co-editing of The Routledge Handbook of Refugee Narratives. He curates the series “Scatterings.”
Past MEMBERS
Former Friends
Here are our former Advisory Board members, who are integral to our collective's growth and formation.
Alia Somani
is a professor of English at Sheridan College, and she holds a PhD from Western University. Her current research project, which began as her doctoral dissertation, explores the intersections between memory and nation-formation, and considers two events in Canada’s past that symbolize the exclusion of racialized minorities from the nation: the 1914 Komagata Maru incident and the 1985 Air India bombing. Alia’s publications have appeared in various journals including South Asian Diaspora, Postcolonial Text, and Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. In addition to her academic work, Alia has written and directed her own play.
Donald Goellnicht
was a Professor of English & Cultural Studies at McMaster University. His research and teaching are in the areas of Asian North American and African American literature and culture, critical race/ethnic studies, diaspora/transnational studies, critical refugee studies, and queer studies. He has published on many Asian North American writers and artists, and has co-edited: with Daniel Coleman, a special issue ofEssays on Canadian Writingon "Race" (2002); with Eleanor Ty, Asian North American Identities: Beyond the Hyphen (2004), and with Stephen Sohn and Paul Lai, a special issue of Modern Fiction Studieson “Theorizing Asian American Fiction” (2010).
Y-Dang Troeung
was an Assistant Professor of English at the University of British Columbia. She researches and teaches in the fields of transnational Asian literatures, decolonial studies, critical refugee studies, global south studies, transpacific Cold War studies, and critical disability studies. Her recent book is entitled Refugee Lifeworlds: the Afterlife of the Cold War in Cambodia (Temple University Press, August 2022) and Landbridge: A Memoir in Fragments. She was also an Associate Editor of the journal Canadian Literature: A Quarterly of Criticism and Review and an affiliate of the Asian Canadian Studies and Migration Program (ACAM).