People

Kassandre graduated from the University of Montreal with an MA in Anthropology where her SSHRC funded research focused on religion and youth in diaspora. After working in research for the University of Montréal, l’Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue on questions of immigration and integration in Canada, she worked at the City of Montreal’s Newcomer Office. More recently, Kassandre worked in project management and project evaluation in France and Pakistan. Passionate about questions of displacement and cultural integration, she now works as Coordinator for the Institute for Research on Immigration and Society (IRMS) at Concordia University.

Alix obtained a PhD in Medical and Health Care Studies from Swansea University, where her ESRC-funded research examined the maternity care experiences of mothers seeking sanctuary in Wales. She has experience working on research projects related to health, wellbeing, and social issues in academic and governmental institutions. Alix now works as the Communications and Research Coordinator for the Institute for Research on Migration and Society (IRMS) at Concordia University.

With a bachelor's degree in business administration and tourism, as well as a diploma in computerized accounting, I have over nine years of professional experience in the Quebec job market. My career lies at the intersection of accounting, administration, and organizational management, with a specialization in financial operations and administrative processes.

My career path has allowed me to work in diverse organizational contexts, notably in the tourism sector, and then within international logistics companies such as FedEx, Expeditors Canada, and Canada Cartage. More recently, my role as an administrative technician at the Caisse Centrale of the Université de Montréal has provided me with a new perspective on the academic environment and allowed me to tackle highly complex tasks, develop a versatile, analytical, and collaborative approach, while strengthening my communication skills and my ability to support strategic decision-making.

Farbod Abbasi is a PhD candidate in Cybersecurity and Intelligent Systems Engineering at Concordia University and a Bridging Divides Graduate Fellow. His research combines population synthesis and data-driven transportation modeling to study travel behavior and mobility, with a particular focus on immigrant populations in Canadian cities.

Rita Andraous is a PhD student in Education at Concordia University, specializing in Applied Linguistics. Her research interests lie at the intersection of language, literacy, migration, and social inclusion, with a particular focus on multilingual pedagogies for adult newcomers and refugee-background learners. Her work explores how language education can move beyond traditional approaches to language teaching and learning by recognizing and building on learners’ full linguistic repertoires, experiences, and knowledge. Rita is interested in developing more equitable language and literacy practices that support meaningful participation and create inclusive learning opportunities for diverse learners.

Houman Haghi is a PhD candidate in Information and Systems Engineering at Concordia University. His research focuses on human mobility and spatial decision-making, with particular interests in destination and residential location choice, travel behaviour, and the application of machine learning and artificial intelligence to behavioural modelling. His current work also examines immigrant settlement patterns in Canada, exploring how spatial, socioeconomic, and mobility-related factors shape where newcomers settle and how these patterns evolve over time. More broadly, his research interests lie at the intersection of transportation, urban systems, migration, data science, and computational methods for understanding human behaviour.

Eamon Leonard (he/him) is a PhD student in Concordia University’s Individualized Program. His research focuses on the participatory co-design of AI systems that help workers strengthen their judgment, develop ethical know-how and shape the technologies affecting their working lives. Drawing on Human Systems Intervention and organizational learning, he explores how workers and organizations can jointly design and govern AI to support equity, accessibility and wellbeing. His interests connect digital ethics and the future of work with the barriers migrants and newcomers encounter in accessing opportunities, influencing decisions and experiencing belonging at work.

As Lead for Global Psychosocial Risk Management at Lyra Health, Eamon works with global workforces to support worker mental health and improve working conditions across diverse cultural, organizational and regulatory contexts. This work informs his attention to how emerging technologies affect workers’ wellbeing, agency and participation. He is also Co-founder and Director of Learning at the Odeiwin Foundation, collaborating with Indigenous leaders on culturally grounded learning and leadership initiatives. His earlier work at the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion engaged issues affecting immigrant and newcomer inclusion in Canadian workplaces.

He holds a master’s degree in Human Systems Intervention from Concordia University and an MBA from Université Laval, and is a recipient of the Concordia University Graduate Doctoral Fellowship.

Alex Mendes Pereira Rodrigues is an MASc student in Cybersecurity and Intelligent Systems Engineering (CISE) at Concordia University's Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science, supervised by Prof. Zachary Patterson (TRIP Lab, Concordia) and Prof. Bilal Farooq (LiTrans, Toronto Metropolitan University). His research applies machine learning to mobility data, focusing on trip-purpose prediction from GPS trajectories and on rigorous, leakage-audited evaluation of ML models for transportation, work recently submitted to the TRB 2027 Annual Meeting, and he is a co-author of a transportation mode detection paper accepted to the HASCA-SHL workshop at UbiComp/ISWC 2026. A computer engineer from the Federal University of Itajubá in Brazil, Alex brings over six years of industry experience in software development and data science, most recently as a Senior Data Scientist at The AES Corporation, where he built turnover prediction and workforce optimization models, and as a Senior Data Specialist at TOTVS, working on sentiment analysis, payroll anomaly detection and AI agents.

Margaret (Maka) Ta (she/her) is a master's researcher in Geography, Planning and Environment at Concordia University and a fellow at the Institute of Research on Migration in Society (IRMS). Her research focuses on how state immigration policy functions as a mechanism of racial division. By comparative analysis, and through a theoretical approach, she aims to pinpoint the differential procedures experienced by Haitian and Vietnamese refugees. In doing so, her work aims to highlight the systemic racial dynamics embedded within government displacement and resettlement frameworks.

Nadya Zezyulina is a distinguished fellow at Concordia University's research chair on the politics of immigration and a research assistant for the "Migrant Integration in the Mid-21st Century: Bridging Divides" project. She earned a bachelor's degree in business management from Samara State University and further pursued her passion for societal issues by obtaining a Psychology degree, with a minor in Immigration Studies, from Concordia University. Nadya is a recipient of a research fellowship Migrant Integration in the Mid-21st Century: Bridging Divides awarded by Concordia’s Department of Political Science.

Sivakamy Thayaalan is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University studying sanctuary city policies and the experiences of undocumented migrants in Canada under the supervision of Dr. Mireille Paquet. Previously, she has worked in programmatic roles in international non-profit organizations such as War Child Canada and as a research assistant at York University conducting research on topics related to forced migration and disaster recovery.

Thomas Reynolds is a master's student in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University. Working under Dr. Mireille Paquet, he is studying food insecurity within refugee populations in Canada. Thomas looks forward to integrating his experience working in the food industry into his research, providing a unique perspective. From Portland, Oregon, Thomas obtained his bachelor's degree in political science from the University of Oregon, focusing on political theory and legal systems. He is the recipient of the Steven Goldberg Entrance Bursary and Campaign for a New Millennium Student Contribution Graduate Scholarship. In addition to his studies, Thomas works as a Teaching Assistant and a Research Assistant at Concordia University.

Brianna Losinger-Ross is a PhD student in Political Science at Concordia University. With an academic background in journalism and immigration studies, her research interests focus on immigration politics in Quebec and Canada, particularly how immigration is discussed, framed, and politicized by governments, political actors, and the media. Her current work examines how immigration discourse evolves over time, including how policy priorities, public opinion, and media narratives shape understandings of immigration, temporary migration, and belonging in Canada. She also works as a research assistant on projects related to the discussion of immigration in Canadian parliamentary debates and its evolution over time.

Juliana Tinoco is an MA student in Political Science at Concordia University, specializing in migration. She holds a BA in International Development from McGill University, with double minors in Sociology and Communications. Her research focuses on integration policies in Canada, with particular attention to the aspirations of economic migrants and how these intersect or clash with government expectations around qualifications, labour, and belonging. She is currently a Research Assistant with the Institute for Research on Migration and Society (IRMS), collaborating with postdoctoral fellow Émile Baril on research examining migrant labour and working conditions in the Canadian truck driving industry.

Isabella Fiore (she/they) is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University. Her research explores Canadian immigration enforcement, the role of advanced digital technologies in enforcement practices, and how enforcement contributes to national discourses of sovereignty and nation-building. 

Isabella's broader research agenda works to shed light on the (in)visibility of Canadian immigration policy through policy and discourse analysis of economic immigration policy. They hold an undergraduate degree from the University of Ottawa in Political Science and Feminist and Gender Studies and have worked in both the public and non-profit sectors in roles supporting access to the public sphere for equity-deserving groups. Isabella's rich background of intersectional analysis guides her research practices as they analyze power, politics, and discourses as they affect immigration policy.

Isabella is a recipient of the Bridging Divides Fellowship (2026-2030), the Concordia Faculty of Arts and Science Graduate Fellowship (2026-2030), and the SSHRC Masters' Fellowship (2026-2027). 

Charles-Olivier L’Homme is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University, where he studies migration diplomacy from an international relations perspective. He holds a dual MA from UQAM and Sciences Po Grenoble, where he specialized in Middle Eastern and Mediterranean dynamics. His doctoral research examines Turkey’s use of the Syrian crisis as a leverage tool in its relations with the European Union, under the supervision of Mireille Paquet. He is also a contributor to the CFREF project "Migrant Integration in the Mid-21st Century: Bridging Divides."

Alicia Fortier-Leblanc is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University under the supervision of Dr. Mireille Paquet. Her research examines how the precarious legal status of temporary immigrants shapes their trust in political institutions in Quebec and Canada. She holds a B.A. in Communication and Politics from Université de Montréal and an M.A. in Applied Politics from Université de Sherbrooke, during which she completed an internship at the Ministère des Relations internationales et de la Francophonie of Quebec on issues of international student mobility. She has also worked as a facilitator in the francization and integration program at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

Celia Bensiali (she/her) is a PhD student in Political Science at Concordia University. Her research examines how sanctuary cities in Canada and Europe design inclusive policies and mobilize transnational networks to advance rights and social inclusion amid increasingly restrictive migration regimes. 

Celia’s broader work explores the evolving architectures of urban governance, territorial justice, and the multilevel dynamics of policy implementation. Her doctoral project builds on extensive professional and research experience bridging academia and public administration. Before starting her PhD, she worked at the City of Montreal’s Service for Diversity and Social Inclusion, where she contributed to initiatives addressing housing insecurity and the inclusion of unhoused populations. She also collaborated as both researcher and coordinator within the international network TRYSPACES, leading interdisciplinary teams on youth and migrant participation in urban public life. 

Her work combines an intersectional and critical approach at the crossroads of political science, urban studies, and migration policy. She is the recipient of the SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship (2025–2028), the Bridging Divides Fellowship (2024–2025), the ERIQA Research Grant (2024–2025), as well as the Concordia University Merit Scholarship (2024–2025). 

Jocelyne Brad is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University studying explainable AI and its implementation in immigration policy under the supervision of Dr. Mireille Paquet. She holds a BA from Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where she studied International Relations and French and Francophone studies. Alongside her studies, she works as a Research Assistant exploring explainability in immigration policy and digital platform transformation and works as a Teaching Assistant.

Benjamin Astorga is an Honours student in Pure and Applied Mathematics at Concordia University and a national level gymnast training at the Olympic Training Centre. His Honors project focused on studying a generalization of derivates, called proximal sub-gradients. He has also founded a gymnastics software start-up called Gym Art, focused on bringing accessibility to the sport. It has tools ranging from automatically calculating the start value of a gymnastics routine, to reducing the time to organize a gymnastics event from hours to seconds and mathematically ensure the quality of experience of the athletes, coaches and judges. 

Estefania Perez completed a MA degree in the Department of Political Science at Concordia University, studying immigrant influencers' role in shaping migration choices under the supervision of Dr. Mireille Paquet.

Hannah Lazarus, a recent graduate of Concordia University with a Bachelor's in Political Science and a minor in Human Rights, is currently doing Master’s studies in Public Policy and Public Administration at the same institution. Her international experience at Sciences Po Aix in Aix-en-Provence provided valuable insights into political issues from a European perspective. Having worked in a senior position at a Jewish community center for two years, she is looking forward to integrating her communication and collaboration skills in her role as a research assistant.