Post-Doctoral Fellows

Sujata Ramachandran

Email: [email protected]

Dr. Sujata Ramachandran is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Balsillie School of International Affairs with the SSHRC-funded MiFOOD Project. She received her PhD in Human Geography from Wilfrid Laurier University. Sujata has extensive experience studying various aspects of migration in Canada, Southern Africa and South Asia. Her research interests include migration and development, migrant integration, and migration governance. As part of her postdoctoral research, Sujata will conduct a study on South-South migration to India for the MiFOOD Project.

Hari KC

Email: [email protected]

Hari KC is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the International Migrant Research Centre at the School of International Policy and Governance at the Balsillie of School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University where he also works as a Contract Teaching Faculty. He has completed a PhD in Global Governance from the Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier University. His doctoral dissertation examines Nepal’s labour migration governance from a gender lens with a focus on Nepali women migrant domestic workers in the Arabian Gulf countries. His research broadly looks at South-South labour migration (with a regional focus on South Asia), migration governance, and social justice. In the past, Hari has worked, in various roles, for the BBC Media Action, Embassy of India, Carter Centre, and Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, Nepal. Hari holds two master’s degrees in English from the University of Waterloo (Canada) and Tribhuvan University (Nepal), and also a master’s degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from Conrad Grebel University College (Canada).

Rosalind Ragetlie

Email: [email protected]

Dr. Rosalind Ragetlie is a SSHRC postdoctoral fellow working in the MiFOOD project. Her research investigates gender, migration, and food insecurity in multi-local migrant households in Benin. Focused on the multi-local household, Dr. Ragetlie’s research contributes to the understudied area of gender and food security in households that exist in the complex space between urban and rural contexts, connected through dynamic flows of migration and remittances. Dr. Ragetlie holds a Ph.D. in geography from Western University. Her postdoctoral research examined food insecurity and gender among smallholder farmers in northwestern Benin. Her Ph.D. research examined how gender shapes food insecurity within the agrarian household. Dr. Ragetlie has several years of teaching experience at Western University and an extensive peer-reviewed publication record. She has also worked as a research consultant with the International Centre for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA), and in Middle East Development Assistance at Global Affairs Canada.

Sean Sithole

Email: [email protected]

Dr. Sean T. Sithole is a post-doctoral research fellow at the Institute for Social Development, University of the Western Cape. His recent work as a post-doctoral researcher is on a Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) funded project on the COVID-19 pandemic, food security and migration. The project is part of the MiFOOD (migration and food) network research projects. Dr. Sithole has researched and participated in events on migration, remittances, food security, census, civil registration, and vital statistics with the support from several organisations, including Scalabrini Institute for Human Mobility in Africa (SIHMA), Statistics South Africa (Stats SA), United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and the European Commission. Dr. Sithole holds Doctoral (PhD) and Master’s degrees in Development Studies from the University of the Western Cape (UWC), Digital Marketing and Social Media Marketing certificate courses from the University of Cape Town (UCT), and Special Honours and BA degrees from the University of Zimbabwe (UZ). His research interests include digital remittances, mobile transfers, social media and migrant networks, international migration and urban food security nexus, information communication technology (ICT) and development in the global South.

Mercedes Eguiguren

Email: [email protected]

Mercedes Eguiguren is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Inequalities, at Universidad San Francisco de Quito (Ecuador) and a Visiting Researcher at the Balsillie School of International Affairs, working on the MiFOOD Project. Her research interests focus on the relationships between mobility, socio-spatial inequalities and the subjective experience of migration. She has researched and published on the links between international and internal migration, aspirations and social imaginaries as drivers of migration, the migration-development nexus, the contemporary history of Ecuadorian migration, and migration policy and political narratives. She serves as the co-chair of LASA’s Ecuadorian Studies Section, 2022 – 2024.

Elizabeth Onyango

Email: [email protected]

Dr. Elizabeth Onyango is and alumnus of University of Waterloo where she completed her PhD in Health Geography in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management where her research explored the health and wellbeing indicators that matter to Kenyans of different ages and genders from different regions in the country.  In her recent role as a Queen Elizabeth Scholar (QES) and postdoctoral fellow at Balsillie School of International Affairs (BSIA) with the Hungry Cities Partnership, Dr. Onyango’s research work focused on the role of formal and informal social protection systems in boosting food security status of urban households and effects of COVID-19 on household food security. Dr. Onyango’s research interests include population health and well-being research in the global south with a focus on livelihoods and food insecurity, gender-based violence, youth development, maternal and child health and environmental health issues including sanitation and hygiene. Dr. Onyango is also passionate about community service and has worked in different capacities both as a Rotarian and a project coordinator in service to her community.

Ning Dai

Email: [email protected]

Dr. Ning Dai is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Wilfrid Laurier University and the School of International Policy and Governance. Ning holds a PhD in Geography and Environmental Management from the University of Waterloo. He has long-standing research interests and extensive experience in the sustainable transformations in China’s food systems. More specifically, his research investigates the adoption of ecological agriculture and the recent development of the e-grocery sector in China. He is currently working on the CIHR-funded project “Accessing and Mitigating the Food Security Consequences of COVID-19 in China” and the MiFOOD Project to understand the relations between COVID-19, migration, and food security. Ning also serves on the Board of Directors at Canadian Association for Food Studies (CAFS).