Academic interests
Nicole's (Nik) academic interests are on immigration and asylum policy, extraterritorial migration controls, transnational migration governance and inter-state cooperation, ‘street-level’ implementation, inequalities in access to mobility, and migration-related detention and deportation. She is especially interested in how mid- and street-level officials from across multiple nation-states negotiate and implement migration control practices
Background
Nik has a PhD in Migration Studies from the University of Sussex, UK (2020), a MA in Human Rights from Mahidol University, Thailand (2013) and a BS in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, US (2008).
She is also an Research Fellow at the Sussex Centre for Migration Studies (SCMR), UK and an editorial assistant for the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (JEMS).
Prior to her PhD, Nik worked as a project coordinator in Thailand with the Strengthening Human Rights for Rohingya Project and was a consultant at the Centre for Migration Studies of New York, where she wrote about the US and Europe’s response to the Syrian refugee crisis, stateless Rohingya in Thailand and Australia’s extraterritorial controls.
Projects
At Arena, Nik works on the Deporting Foreigners: Contested Norms in International Practice (NORMS) project. Her specific focus is on Frontex and how norms on deportation are negotiated and contested at the street-level by officials from across member states
Previously, she carried out research on the UK’s extraterritorial migration management (2015-2020) and worked with the research and advocacy project on strengthening human rights for stateless Rohingya in Southeast Asia (2012-2014).