Ayla Bonfiglio
United States
MSc Forced Migration, 2010
Mansfield College
Funding: Arcadia
Ayla Bonfiglio obtained an MSc in Forced Migration from the University of Oxford as a Weidenfeld Scholar. Her dissertation on refugee non-formal education programs was published by UNHCR. Ayla also holds a BA (Hons) in Political Science from Columbia University where she received the Charles A. Beard Prize for her dissertation on refugee self-reliance.
Formally, she was the Deputy Director and Co-Founder of the Conflict and Education Learning Laboratory (CELL), which works towards the reduction of divisive stereotypes and discriminatory content in educational media. She was also a Doctoral Fellow at UNU-MERIT/Maastricht University. In recognition of her work at CELL and research, she was awarded the 2019 Lion’s Pride honour by Columbia University, as a young alumna working to have a meaningful and positive impact on the world.
Ayla has held visiting researcher positions at the African Centre for Migration and Society at the University of the Witwatersrand, the African Migration and Development Policy Centre in Nairobi, and Makerere University. Formerly, she was a Research Officer at the International Migration Institute, Oxford. She has worked and carried out research in Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, and Uganda. She has contributed to projects for GTZ, Samuel Hall, IOM, and UNESCO.
Currently, Ayla is the Regional Head of the Mixed Migration Centre in Eastern and Southern Africa, Egypt and Yemen. She is based in Nairobi, Kenya.
https://twitter.com/aylabonfiglio
