IRiS Associates

Dr Marta Foresti

Senior IRiS Associate

Director ODI Europe and Visiting Senior Research Fellow, Institute of Global Affairs, LSE

Marta is an established leader with extensive experience in global and national policy making and delivery. As well as being Director of ODI Europe Marta also leads its Human Mobility Initiative, managing the institute engagement on migration at a global, regional and local level.  She is acted as Senior Policy Advisor for the consultation of the Global Compact For Migration, was a member of the Advisory Board of Refugeesdeeply.com, of the Editorial Board of the Journal of Migration Policy and Practice as well as of the Board of PorCausa.org. 

Marta worked as a Senior Advisor to the Italian Treasury, as a Senior Manager at Save the Children and as a Researcher at the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations.   Her interests include the political economy of development and reform, sustainable urban development, migration and human mobility, EU and neighbourhood policies, conflict and fragility.  Marta has over 20 years of research policy formulation and delivery, as well as management experience and has an interest in applied social research methodologies and policy evaluation.

Email: m.foresti@odi.org.uk

Dr Marie Godin

British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow, 
Refugee Studies Centre, University of Oxford

Marie’s British Academy project is titled ‘Refugees, social protection and digital technologies in times of the “refugee crisis”’.  The aim of the project is to explore how the development of tech-social protection initiatives led by, with or for refugees, is contributing to a reshaping of the politics of welfare at the local, national and transnational levels.

Marie was a Research Officer on the mobile welfare project at the Oxford International Migration Institute (IMI) investigating the links between social protection initiatives, welfare systems and migration within, towards and beyond Europe. Her work has appeared in a range of journals, including the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, African Diaspora. A Journal of Transnational Africa in a Global World, and Refuge: Canada’s Journal on Refugees.

Email: marie.godin@qeh.ox.ac.uk
Twitter: @MarieGodin001

Dr Simon McMahon

Researcher, Migration and Demography Knowledge Centre, European Commission

Simon has a decade of experience in research and policymaking on international migration. He is currently based in the European Commission’s Knowledge Centre on Migration and Demography, having previously completed at PhD at King’s College London (UK) and held posts at Coventry University (UK), El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (Mexico), Pompeu Fabra University (Spain) and the European University Institute (Italy).

Simon has published four books on migration as author or editor and numerous articles in academic journals. He has also been involved in international fora including the Global Refugee Forum, the Global Forum on Migration and Development and the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty, and collaborates extensively with international organisations and local civil society groups.

Dr Anna Papoutsi

Research Fellow, University of Birmingham

Anna Papoutsi is an interdisciplinary scholar working at the intersection of border studies, migration, urban studies and social policy. Her expertise lies in conducting qualitative critical research on borders, migration and human mobility, through an urban lens and a focus on the micro-level, the local, the neighbourhood, the community. Her PhD work focused on the impact of the 2015 border crisis on the city of Athens, its institutions, public space and social movements. It explored the new spatialities carved out by migrants, focusing on how their schooling, squatting and spontaneous everyday activities sought to grapple with the novel normative requirements of EU’s encampment strategies and border policies.

Additionally, she has conducted extensive research in landing sites and camps on Lesbos and in Athens, investigating the new governance strategies and tools developed by the European Commission, their everyday implementation and impact on the spaces and lives of migrants and local communities.

Professor Jacques Poot

Emeritus Professor of Population Economics, National Institute of Demographic and Economic Analysis, University of Waikato, New Zealand

Jacques expertise includes the causes and consequences of international migration related to economics of population.  He has had leadership roles in several large multi-institution research programmes, such as the Migrant Diversity and Regional Disparity in Europe, Capturing the Diversity Dividend of Aotearoa New Zealand (CaDDANZ) and the Economic Integration of Immigrants in New Zealand.

Jacques has been working in recent years particularly on international and internal migration, the economics of cultural diversity, local labour markets, regional development, housing markets, and forecasting.

Email: Jacques.poot@waikato.ac.nz

Sarah Taal

Director and Advocate, Baobab Women's Project

The Baobab Women's Project is a Birmingham based community organisation assisting and empowering refugee and migrant women.

Sarah holds a BA in International Relations from the University of Warwick and an MA in Migration and Social Policy from the University of Birmingham. She has professional connections with BIRCH Community Hosting Project, Hope Projects and Coventry Peace House Night Shelter for destitute migrants with NRPF, currently sitting on the former projects steering groups and  the Shelter safeguarding panel.

Sarah is an active trustee of the Asylum Support Appeals Project (ASAP) and Coventry Migrant Women's Houses (CMWH). She has researched info trafficking among Nigerian and Albanian women, and gender-based violence among refugees in Africa alongside IRiS. 

Email: sarah@baobabwomen.co.uk