Mira Siegelberg is Associate Professor of Politics and Director of the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility at The New School for Social Research. She is a historian with interests in European and U.S. intellectual history, the history and theory of rights, law and legal thought, and the politics of citizenship and migration. Her research focuses particularly on the intellectual, legal, and institutional formation of modern international order.
Her first book, Statelessness: A Modern History (Harvard University Press, 2020), is the first major study of the concept of statelessness—a legal category that came to define the absence of national status following the First World War. The book illuminates how mass statelessness shaped the emergence of modern statehood and citizenship. Statelessness received the Francesco Guicciardini Prize for Best Book in Historical International Relations from the International Studies Association; a Certificate of Merit in a Specialized Area of International Law from the American Society of International Law; the Bentley Book Prize (co-winner) from the World History Association for outstanding contribution to the field of world history; The Laura Shannon Prize (Silver Medal) in Contemporary European Studies from the Nanovic Institute. It has been translated into German (Hamburger Edition, 2023) and Arabic (The National Council for Culture, Arts, and Letters/Alam Al-Marifah, 2022) and is currently being translated into Chinese (Gusa Publishing).
Siegelberg received a PhD in History at Harvard University in 2014, after which she held a postdoctoral fellowship at the Princeton Society of Fellows, and a permanent lectureship in History and Law at Queen Mary, University of London. Before joining the NSSR Politics Department, she was Associate Professor of History at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge.
Catherine McGahan is the Associate Director of the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility since August 2019. She received an M.A. in International Affairs from the Julian J. Studley Graduate Programs in International Affairs from the New School of Public Engagement and a B.A. in Literature from Mount Holyoke College.
Before coming to The Zolberg Institute, Catherine was the Development Manager for the International Rescue Committee in Dallas and Abilene, where she focused on fundraising, marketing, and communications for both Texas refugee resettlement offices. Catherine was the Partnerships Manager for Right To Play USA, based in New York City, managing corporate relationships, third-party relationships, and events. Prior to that, Catherine worked for Union Settlement Association in East Harlem. She currently sits on the Associate Board for Union Settlement.
Director, Cities and Human Mobility Project
Achilles Kallergis is the Director of the Cities and Migration Project at the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility. In this role, he coordinates the Research Platform on Cities, Migration and Membership—a collaboration of The New School and fifteen research institutions from around the world.
His research focuses on urbanization, migration and mobility in rapidly growing cities. Specifically, it explores how locally-generated data can provide new evidence on mobility patterns and contribute to improving living conditions in low-income urban settings through better provision of housing and services. In his research, he has collaborated with transnational community networks Slum/Shack Dwellers International and the Asian Coalition for Housing Rights.
Previously he was a Research Scholar at the Marron Institute of Urban Management at New York University. He has taught at the Wagner Graduate School of Public Service at New York University and at the New School Graduate Program in International Affairs.
His work has been published in academic journals and edited books. He holds a PhD in Urban Policy and an M.A. in International Affairs from the New School University, and an M.A. in Political Science from the Université de Lausanne.
University Professor
Alex Aleinikoff is University Professor, and has served as Director of the Zolberg Institute since January 2017. He received a J.D. from the Yale Law School and a B.A. from Swarthmore College.
Alex has written widely in the areas of immigration and refugee law and policy, transnational law, citizenship, race, and constitutional law. He recently published a book titled The Arc of Protection: Reforming the International Refugee Regime, which he co-authored with Leah Zamore. His book Semblances of Sovereignty: The Constitution, the State, and American Citizenship was published by Harvard University Press in 2002. Alex is a co-author of leading legal casebooks on immigration law and forced migration.
Before coming to The New School, Alex served as United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Refugees (2010-15). He served on the faculties of the Georgetown University Law Center, where he also served as Dean and Executive Vice President of Georgetown University, and at the University of Michigan Law School. He was co-chair of the Immigration Task Force for President Barack Obama’s transition team in 2008. From 1994 to 1997, he served as the general counsel, and then executive associate commissioner for programs, at the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
Alex was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014.
Alexandra Délano Alonso is Professor of Politics and Global Studies at The New School and Eugene M. Lang Professor for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring. As a migration scholar, her earlier writing examines the Mexican state’s relations with its diaspora in the United States and, more recently, the shifting forms of agency and solidarity created by and for migrants at the margins of the state, both in Mexico and in the United States. Her current research explores the question of ungrievability and public mourning around migrants who have died crossing borders; memory activism in Mexico in the context of enforced disappearances; and alternative narratives and forms of social mobilization in response to border politics.
Her research and practice draws connections between academia, policy and activism by identifying spaces where bottom-up and top-down interactions produce innovative practices, policies and institutions. Looking at these questions from both sides of the border—geographically and politically, and also linguistically and culturally—, and in collaboration with community organizers, activists, artists, government offices, and other scholars, her work offers an opportunity to explore different forms of social and political participation and to understand the emergence of alternative conceptions, narratives and practices of citizenship, transnationalism, sovereignty and solidarity.
She is co-founder and former co-director of the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility with Miriam Ticktin, as well as a member of The New School's Sanctuary Working Group.
Born and raised in Mexico, her experience living across borders and her mixed origins as the granddaughter of immigrants have shaped her research, teaching, mentoring, university service and activism.
Cities and Migration
Colleen Thouez is senior fellow at the New School’s Zolberg Institute where she directs the Global Cities portfolio, and where she will be teaching a new course on ‘Cities and Migration’ simultaneously with classrooms in Paris and Montréal in the Spring. From 2018- 2021, Dr. Thouez served as the inaugural director of the Welcoming and Inclusive Cities Division at the Open Society Foundations (OSF), where she launched the Mayors Migration Council (MMC) and its Global Cities Fund for Pandemic Relief (2019), the Africa-Europe Mayors Dialogue (2020), and the US-based University Alliance for Refugees and At-Risk Migrants (2018). Prior to this, she held leadership positions at the United Nations in the dual fields of adult education and international migration: first, as the Head of the UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), the UN’s main training arm in New York from 2004-2010, and later, as special advisor to the late Sir Peter Sutherland, the UN Secretary-General’s representative on migration until 2018. At the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, she co-founded Europe Prykhystok, a locally-led effort to provide short-term refuge for hundreds of displaced and recently orphaned children. Dr. Thouez advises national governments, municipal governments, regional bodies, the UN, the World Bank and public and private universities, amongst others. Her most recent publications are “New power configurations: city mobilization and policy change” (2022) in Global Networks; and “Cities as emergent international actors in the field of migration” (2020), Global Governance: A Review of Multilateralism and International Organizations. Dr. Thouez is currently also a senior visiting fellow at SciencesPo Paris. She has a Ph.D. from Tufts University, and has been a fellow at Duke and Columbia Universities.
Director, Global Policy Engagement
Leah Zamore is the Senior Research Fellow and directs the Institute's global policy engagement efforts. Prior to joining the Zolberg Institute, Leah was directed the Humanitarian Crises program at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation (CIC). She also co-directs an Experts Group on Global Refugee Policy and is the co-author, with Alex Aleinikoff, of The Arc of Protection: Reforming the International Refugee Regime (Stanford, 2019). Ms. Zamore taught international human rights law as a visiting professor at Fundação Getúlio Vargas law school in Sao Paulo, Brazil; served as a special advisor to the federal Government in Brasilia on refugee and humanitarian issues; and, before that, worked as a policy advisor to the Deputy High Commissioner of the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Geneva, Switzerland. In previous years, her human rights and humanitarian work has taken her to Ethiopia, northern Uganda, South Africa, France, Kosovo, and India. Ms. Zamore has a Juris Doctorate from Yale Law School, a Master’s degree from Oxford University, and a Bachelor’s degree from Harvard University.
Bella Mosselmans is Director of the Strategic Litigation Council on Refugee Rights, a project between the Zolberg Institute and Cornell Law School. She is a qualified lawyer currently based in New York. She supports Here for Good as Senior Legal and Strategy Advisor.
Bella was recognised on the 2020 Forbes 30 under 30 List for co-founding and leading Here for Good.
In 2021, Bella recently received a full Kennedy Memorial Trust Scholarship to undertake an LLM at Harvard Law School. Prior to this, she worked as an asylum and human rights lawyer at the charity, Safe Passage.
Bella set up Here for Good while training to be a lawyer at Wesley Gryk Solicitors LLP, an immigration law firm. She previously worked part-time at South West London Law Centres running their free legal advice clinics. She completed her undergraduate degree at the London School of Economics where she was nominated one of LSE’s top 20 inspirational women in 2015. She is a Young Trustee at a leading international NGO, Restless Development, and co-runs a grassroots charitable project called Access to Education Sierra Leone.
Emmanuel Guerisoli
holds a PhD in Sociology and History from The New School for Social Research and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility.
Previously, he studied law in Argentina and France, specializing in international criminal law and human rights, and earned a Master's degree in politics and international studies in the United States, focusing on international security and terrorism. In his doctoral dissertation, he explores how the interaction of emergency regimes, racialized securitization, and settler colonial spatial frameworks cements the foundations of the war on terror’s legal architecture and informs the design of the different legal modalities that have been applied by the United States against terrorist subjects.
Emmanuel relies on race critical theory and (post)colonial studies, making use of a historical comparative methodology and critical legal analysis, in order to trace the complex genealogies of each different legal mechanisms, revealing their settler colonial legacies and showcasing how they have generated differential citizenship by extending jurisdiction beyond U.S. borders and by fragmenting constitutional protections to certain racialized subjects within the country. While at Zolberg, he will teach courses focusing on racialized (im)mobilities and settler colonialism, transform his dissertation into a book manuscript, and start exploring a research framework to study the current, and future, effects of climate change on human and no-human mobility and to develop impact scenarios on states capabilities.
He has taught courses on race critical theory, sociological theory, citizenship, legal, political & historical sociology, migration, and state & non-state violence. He has also been engaged with NGOs and other agencies in Buenos Aires and NYC in areas such as imprisonment, sexual violence, reproductive rights, immigration. Since March 2020, he has been involved with COVID mitigation and research efforts at various medical and vaccination centers in the New York City area, focusing on assisting Hispanic patients.
Olivia Woldemikael is an Eritrean-American scholar with a research focus on migration and a social justice orientation. She holds a PhD from the Harvard Government department in Comparative Politics and is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Zolberg Institute of Migration and Mobility. She investigates global migration in local contexts, with a particular focus on the political and social consequences of migrant and refugee-hosting in cities. Her projects examine the dynamic interactions of refugees, host community members, and government, investigating the emergent political opportunities, service impacts, and shifting attitudes towards inclusion that come with migration and displacement. Her work encompasses research conducted in Africa, Latin America, and the United States. More information about her scholarship and publications is linked here: www.oliviawoldemikael.
Dr. Charles Bradley is an education in emergencies scholar, specializing in early childhood care and education programs. His research examines educational experiences and responses in settings of conflict and displacement, with a particular focus on educators’ in situ efforts to make humanitarian planning and programming more responsive to affected communities. Dr. Bradley was awarded the Social Science Research Council International Dissertation Research Fellowship (IDRF), the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship (DDRA), and the NESP Boren Fellowship in support of his research on localizing and decolonizing preschool programs for urban refugees and migrants in Europe. In collaboration with organizational partners such as Sesame Workshop, the Lego Foundation, Amna, UNICEF, and International Rescue Committee, Dr. Bradley has conducted extensive research in refugee camps and urban areas including in Colombia, Greece, Hungary, Jordan, Lebanon, Slovakia, Poland, and the UK.
Aliana Jabbary is the Program Associate at The Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility. She holds an M.A. in American Politics from the CUNY Graduate Center and a B.A. in Political Science and Media Studies from CUNY Hunter College. Her graduate research examined white nationalism, racialization, and the census classification of Middle Eastern and North African identities.
Before joining the Zolberg Institute, Aliana worked on the Power Lists team at City & State NY, where she supported the division’s operations and authored the inaugural Middle Eastern & North African Power 100 list. She also has experience working with nonprofit and good governance organizations.
Student Researchers
The Zolberg Institute fosters the next generation of migration scholars and advocates through its Student Researchers program. Student Researchers are Zolberg-IRC Fellows, Melamid Scholars, and Institute Research Assistants.
Melamid Scholars
- Jeremy Robson
- Maryam Mushtaq
- Teresa Perosa
- Clara Beccaro
- Connor Smith
Zolberg-IRC Fellows
- Khadijah Ally
- Eduardo Mora Zuniga
- Alesha Cid Vega
- Simone Calbi
- Jennie Spector
- Sarah Wilson
Zolberg Research Assistants
- Monica Salmon Gomez
- Paloma Griffin
Affiliated Faculty
The Zolberg Institute convenes distinguished faculty across The New School with demonstrated research and expertise on issues of migration or mobility. Affiliated Faculty provide strategic input on the Institute’s research priorities and contribute to the intellectual life of the Institute.
- Ujju Aggarwahl
- Michael Cohen
- Sakiko Fukuda-Parr
- Rachel Heiman
- Bernadette Ludwig
- William Milberg
- John Rudolph
- Radhika Subramaniam
- Jonathan Bach
- Alexandra Délano Alonso
- Jeffrey Goldfarb
- Peter J. Hoffman
- Arien Mack
- James E. Miller
- Willi Semmler
- Adam Brown
- Abou Farman
- Victoria Hattam
- Robert Kirkbride
- Virag Molnar
- Everita Silina
- Joel Towers
- Sumita Chakravarty
- Carlos Forment
- Joseph Heathcott
- Laura Y. Liu
- Anne McNevin
- Jessica Pisano
- Ann Stoler
- Rafi Youatt
Visiting Researchers
Those interested in becoming Visiting Scholars/Practitioners should first complete this interest form.
Visiting Scholars
- Richard Towle
- Gianluca Gatta
- Nina Glick Schiller
Faculty Fellows
Non-resident Fellows
Kristina Arakelyan is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Public Service at the NYU Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service.
Ian Matthew Kysel is a Visiting Assistant Clinical Professor of Law at Cornell Law School. He is the founder and director of the Transnational Disputes Clinic and of the International Migrants Bill of Rights (IMBR) Initiative, co-directs the Asylum and Convention Against Torture Appellate Clinic and is a core faculty member in the Migration and Human Rights Program. Kysel previously held appointments at the University of Oxford, as a Plumer Visiting Research Fellow at Saint Anne’s College and an Associate Member of Nuffield College, and at the Georgetown University Law Center, as the inaugural Dash/Muse Fellow and an Adjunct Professor of Law. His scholarship has focused on both the rights of migrants and children’s rights. Kysel has written and edited several human rights reports; his opinion articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post and The New Humanitarian. Kysel has argued or participated in litigation before U.S. immigration, federal and state courts as well as international tribunals. He has provided testimony to various legislative bodies and commissions. Kysel was previously a staff attorney at the ACLU of Southern California. He also served as the Aryeh Neier Fellow at both the National ACLU and Human Rights Watch and practiced in Shearman & Sterling’s International Arbitration Group and its Public International Law Practice. Kysel holds an LLM in Advocacy, with distinction, a JD, Magna Cum Laude, Order of the Coif, and a Certificate in Refugees and Humanitarian Emergencies from Georgetown University Law Center. He holds a BA, with high honors, Phi Beta Kappa, from Swarthmore College.
Advisory Board
The Zolberg Institute’s Advisory Board consists of individuals who have dedicated their lives to the further study of migration and mobility. Board members provide guidance and support for the Institute’s various projects.
Deborah Amos covers the Middle East for NPR News. Her reports can be heard on NPR’s award-winning Morning Edition, All Things Considered and Weekend Edition.
Amos travels extensively across the Middle East covering a range of stories including the rise of well-educated Syrian youth who are unqualified for jobs in a market-driven economy, a series focusing on the emerging power of Turkey and the plight of Iraqi refugees.
In 2009, Amos won the Edward Weintal Prize for Diplomatic Reporting from Georgetown University and in 2010 was awarded the Edward R. Murrow Life Time Achievement Award by Washington State University. Amos was part of a team of reporters who won a 2004 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award for coverage of Iraq. A Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 1991-1992, Amos was returned to Harvard in 2010 as a Shorenstein Fellow at the Kennedy School.
In 2003, Amos returned to NPR after a decade in television news, including ABC’s Nightline and World News Tonight and the PBS programs NOW with Bill Moyers and Frontline.
When Amos first came to NPR in 1977, she worked first as a director and then a producer for Weekend All Things Considered until 1979. For the next six years, she worked on radio documentaries, which won her several significant honors. In 1982, Amos received the Prix Italia, the Ohio State Award, and a DuPont-Columbia Award for “Father Cares: The Last of Jonestown” and in 1984 she received a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for “Refugees.”
From 1985 until 1993, Amos spent most of her time at NPR reporting overseas, including as the London Bureau Chief and as an NPR foreign correspondent based in Amman, Jordan. During that time, Amos won several awards, including an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Award and a Break thru Award, and widespread recognition for her coverage of the Gulf War in 1991.
A member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Amos is also the author of Eclipse of the Sunnis: Power, Exile, and Upheaval in the Middle East (Public Affairs, 2010) and Lines in the Sand: Desert Storm and the Remaking of the Arab World (Simon and Schuster, 1992).
Amos began her career after receiving a degree in broadcasting from the University of Florida at Gainesville.
Victoria Hattam is Professor of Politics at The New School for Social Research. She received her PhD in Political Science from MIT. Hattam works in three research areas: US-Mexico border politics, design and production in the global economy, and visual and spatial politics. She is a member of the Multiple Mobilities Research Cluster. In 2018-19, Hattam co-directed the Mellon-funded Sawyer Seminar on Imagined Mobilities with Miriam Ticktin, Anthony Dunne, Fiona Raby, and Alex Aleinikoff. In 2020-21, Hattam will be a faculty fellow at the Graduate Institute for Design, Ethnography, and Social Thought at The New School. She has been a Fulbright Scholar, a Visiting Scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation and a Member at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton.
Andrew Kaldor has been an independent businessman since starting his first company in 1980. He is now an investor. He has been a Director of a number of publicly listed companies, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and other community organizations. He has commissioned many works by Australian composers for the SSO and other music groups.
In 2013 he was awarded a Member of the Order of Australia for significant service to the arts. He holds a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) from the University of Sydney and an MBA (Dean’s Honours list) from Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a teaching fellow. Mr. Kaldor and his immediate family were accepted by Australia as refugees after the second world war. He and his wife, Renata Kaldor, founded the Andrew & Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law in 2013 at UNSW Sydney.
Renata Kaldor is Chair of the City Recital Hall, Angel Place, and serves on the Board of the Sydney Children’s Hospital Network and the Australian World Orchestra. She is also on the Advisory Boards of the Andrew and Renata Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law (UNSW); Heads Over Heels; and the NSW Alzheimer’s Association. She was previously a Trustee of the Sydney Opera House; Judicial Commissioner of NSW; the Deputy Chancellor of the University of Sydney; Board member of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra; Chair of Women’s Advisory Council of NSW; Board Director of NSW State Rail Authority; Director of the Garvan Foundation; Director of Public Interest Law Clearing House.
Renata has also held positions on a number of companies and community organizations associated with education, business and law. Renata has a Bachelor’s degree in Arts and a Diploma of Education from the University of NSW. Renata was honored by the Australian government with the award of an AO in 2002 and a Centenary Medal 2003. She became an Honorary Fellow of the University of Sydney in 2005.
Ira Katznelson (Ph.D., Cambridge, 1969) is an Americanist whose work has straddled comparative politics and political theory as well as political and social history. He returned in 1994 to Columbia, where he had been assistant and then associate professor from 1969 to 1974. He is currently the Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History. In the interim, he taught the University of Chicago, chairing its department of political science from 1979 to 1982; and the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, where he was dean from 1983 to 1989.
His most recent books are Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time, Liberal Beginnings: Making a Republic for the Moderns (with Andreas Kalyvas), and When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America. He is currently completing Liberal Reason, a collection of his essays on the character of modern social knowledge.
Professor Katznelson has served as President of the Social Science Research Council (2012-2017), and of the American Political Science Association (2005-2006). Previously, he served as President of the Social Science History Association and Chair of the Russell Sage Foundation Board of Trustees. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.
Doris Meissner, former Commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), is a Senior Fellow at MPI, where she directs the Institute’s U.S. immigration policy work. Her work and expertise also include immigration and politics, immigration enforcement, border control, cooperation with other countries, and immigration and national security.
She has authored and coauthored numerous reports, articles, and op-eds and is frequently quoted in the media. She served as Director of MPI’s Independent Task Force on Immigration and America’s Future, a bipartisan group of distinguished leaders. The group’s report and recommendations address how to harness the advantages of immigration for a 21st century economy and society. From 1993-2000, she served in the Clinton administration as Commissioner of the INS, then a bureau in the U.S. Department of Justice. She first joined the Justice Department in 1973 as a White House Fellow and Special Assistant to the Attorney General. She served in various senior policy posts until 1981, when she became Acting Commissioner of the INS and then Executive Associate Commissioner, the third-ranking post in the agency. In 1986, she joined the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace as a Senior Associate. Ms. Meissner created the Endowment’s Immigration Policy Project, which evolved into the Migration Policy Institute in 2001.
Ms. Meissner’s board memberships include CARE-USA and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Inter-American Dialogue, the Pacific Council on International Diplomacy, the National Academy of Public Administration, the Administrative Conference of the United States, and the Constitution Society.
Ilse Melamid, nee Hoenigsberg, was born in Vienna, Austria. She has lived in England, Australia, and in the United States. For several years she held the position of Registrar at The New School for Social Research. She married the late Dr. Alexander Melamid, who taught at the NSSR during the time the scholars of the University in Exile were still part of its faculty.
Ms. Melamid also serves on the Board of Selfhelp Community Services, Inc. and is a supporter of services that aid youth and the aged. She is a graduate in Arts of Melbourne University, Australia. She has been a member of the New School for Social Research Board of Governors since 2003. Her generous support of NSSR PhD Students can be seen by the creation of the Melamid Scholarship Fund.
David Miliband is the President and CEO of the International Rescue Committee. He oversees the agency’s relief and development operations in over 30 countries, its refugee resettlement and assistance programs throughout the United States and the IRC’s advocacy efforts in Washington and other capitals on behalf of the world’s most vulnerable people.
Mr. Miliband has had a distinguished political career in the United Kingdom. From 2007 to 2010, he served as the youngest Foreign Secretary in three decades, driving advancements in human rights and representing the United Kingdom throughout the world. His accomplishments have earned him a reputation, in former President Bill Clinton’s words, as “one of the ablest, most creative public servants of our time.” In 2016, Mr. Miliband was named one of the World’s Greatest Leaders by Fortune Magazine.
Mr. Miliband is also the author of the book, Rescue: Refugees and the Political Crisis of Our Time. As the son of refugees, he brings a personal commitment to the IRC’s work and to the premise of the book: that we can rescue the dignity and hopes of refugees and displaced people. And if we help them, in the process we will rescue our own values.
Bitta Mostofi is Commissioner of the Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs (MOIA) in New York City. Under her leadership, MOIA has created programs and policies to advance the integration of immigrant New Yorkers in to the city’s civic, economic and cultural life. Bitta spearheaded the IDNYC outreach campaign, connecting over 1.2 millions New Yorkers regardless of immigration status to government issued identification, increasing access to services and a greater sense of belonging to the city. Other groundbreaking achievements include helping design the ActionNYC legal services program, bringing immigration legal services and education to communities through partnerships in schools, hospitals and community based organizations. In a time of intense anti-immigrant rhetoric and policy at the federal level, Bitta has led New York City’s efforts to ensure immigrant families have access to the services and resources they need, while fighting back against polices that negatively impact New Yorkers.
Bitta has been a passionate immigrant and human rights advocate throughout her career. After graduating law school from DePaul University in Chicago, she practiced civil rights law with a particular focus on the discriminatory impact of immigration practices on Muslim and Middle Eastern immigrants. She later joined Safe Horizon as Senior Staff attorney and continued her legal practice representing immigrant crime victims, asylees, and others in both affirmative and defensive petitions before the immigration court. Bitta led the organization’s advocacy work on behalf of immigrant crime victims seeking U visas, including before the City and Department of Homeland Security.
Bitta also has a background in community organizing, increasing awareness of global human rights injustices and the plight of refugees from Iran and Iraq. Bitta is the proud daughter of Iranian immigrants.
Robert H. Mundheim is Of Counsel at the global law firm Shearman & Sterling LLP, where he advises on corporate governance and professional responsibility issues. He is also a Professor of Corporate Law and Finance at the University of Arizona Law School. He has been University Professor of Law and Finance at the University of Pennsylvania and Dean of its Law School.
Mr. Mundheim has served as General Counsel of the U.S. Treasury, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Salomon Inc., President of the American Academy in Berlin, President of the Appleseed Foundation, and Chair of the American Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility. He is also a trustee of the Curtis Institute of Music, a director of the Salzburg Global Seminar, a founding trustee of the American College of Governance Counsel, and a council member (emeritus) of the American Law Institute.
Edafe Okporo is the author of the book, ASYLUM: A Memoir and Manifesto he brings a personal commitment to his Refugee work and the premise of the book: that home is not where you feel safe and welcome only but also how you make others feel safe and welcome.
Edafe Okporo was born in Warri, Nigeria. He migrated to the United States in 2016 as an asylum seeker and is now a refugee of the United States. Edafe is a global gay rights activist, the founder of Refuge America, and one of the country’s most visible voices on the issue of displacement, leading an organization with a vision to “strengthen as a place of welcome for LGBTQ displaced people.” A graduate of Enugu State University and Masters in human resource management NYU ’22. Inclusion and Diversity, Talent & Organization, and Change Transformation Leader. I live in New York City, and I work as a Talent and Organization Consultant.
The Pont is A New York City-based Primer consulting firm with a vision of building a diverse and inclusive world.
Peter A. Seligmann is the Chairman of the Board and former CEO of Conservation International, a global nonprofit organization that he co-founded in 1987. Under Peter’s leadership, Conservation International has become a cutting-edge leader in valuing and sustainably caring for nature for the well-being of people. Peter, a dynamic communicator and thought leader, has been an influential and inspiring voice in conservation for nearly 40 years. He works in partnership with governments, communities, and businesses to find solutions to ensure the sustainability of our natural resources.
Peter serves on the advisory council for the Jackson Hole Land Trust and is a Director at First Eagle Holdings, Inc. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and served on the Coca-Cola Company’s International Advisory Committee from 2011-2014. Peter was also named to the Enterprise for the Americas Board by President Clinton in 2000.
Peter began his career in 1976 with The Nature Conservancy, serving as the organization’s western region land steward, and later became the director of the California Nature Conservancy. He holds a Master of Science in Forestry and Environmental Science from Yale University and a Bachelor of Science in Wildlife Ecology from Rutgers University. Peter has Honorary Doctorates in Science from Michigan State University and Rutgers University.
A world traveler, avid fisherman, and diver, Peter is based in Seattle, Washington.
Joel Towers is a Professor of Architecture and Sustainable Design at Parsons School of Design in The School of Constructed Environments. He is also the Director of The Tishman Environment and Design Center, and a University Professor at The New School. In 2009 he was appointed Executive Dean of Parsons School of Design. He finished his second term in that role in 2019 and, after a decade of service, returned to the faculty. Under his leadership Parsons completed major curricular reforms, launched several new graduate and undergraduate programs, constructed an integrated, 27,000 sq. ft. cross-disciplinary making facility and raised millions of dollars in scholarship, research, and capital funds. With the intent to expand the school’s reach and research capabilities, Towers supported multiple industry leading design and research labs and expanded the ranks of full-time faculty. Today the school is one of the most internationally diverse anywhere in the US with nearly half of the undergraduate student body coming from other countries. It is consistently ranked the top school for Art and Design in the US by QS World University Rankings.
Towers joined Parsons in January of 2004 as a member of the full-time faculty and the first Director of Sustainable Design and Urban Ecology. In 2006 he was named Associate Provost for Environmental Studies and founded The Tishman Environment and Design Center at The New School. TED C, as the center is known, fosters the integration of bold design, policy, and social justice approaches to environmental issues to advance just and sustainable outcomes in collaboration with communities. From 2007-2009 he was the founding Dean of The School of Design Strategies and Associate Dean of Parsons. In 2019 Towers was named to the leadership group of the NPCC (The New York City Panel on Climate Change) which reports to the New York City Mayor’s Office of Resilience and is charged with providing authoritative, actionable information on future climate change and its potential impacts to support City decision-making.
Towers received a B.S. in Architecture from the University of Michigan School of Architecture and a Master of Architecture from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation. In 1992, after working with William McDonough Architects where he directed projects including The Hannover Principles: Design for Sustainability that helped codify that firm’s environmental thinking, Towers co-founded Sislian Rothstein and Towers Architects. For eighteen years SR+T completed award winning projects and was a testing ground for the integration of research, scholarship and creative practice.
In Memoriam
Henry H. Arnhold joined Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder, Inc., in 1947 and served as chairman from 1960 to 2015. From 1955 to 1959, he acted as president and subsequently chairman of General Ceramics and Steatite Corporation and its affiliates. He was president of the Arnhold Foundation and the Mulago Foundation and served as emeritus board member of Conservation International.
Mr. Arnhold was a member of the Board of Trustees at The New School, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Council on Germany and serves on the advisory board of the World Policy Institute. In 2002, he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Humane Letters from The New School. He was a recipient of the Grand Cross — Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany and was awarded an honorary senatorship by the Technische University Dresden.
Past Affiliates
The Zolberg Institute’s Advisory Board consists of individuals who have dedicated their lives to the further study of migration and mobility. Board members provide guidance and support for the Institute’s various projects.
Faculty
- Fiona Raby
- Christina Moon
- Richard D. Wolff
- David Plotke
- William Moorish
- Andreas Kalyvas
- Teresa Ghilarducci
- Simon Critchley
- Anthony Dunne
- Miriam Ticktin
Visitors
- Juan Chaves-Gonzalez
- Janina Steurner-Siovitz
- Nicholas Maple
- Samira Siddique
- Janine Prantl
- Valeria Castelli
- Ernesto Castañeda
- Michel Algier
- Nicholas Klein
- Nancy Hiemstra
- Svati P. Shah
- Andrew Painter
- Bridget Anderson
- Kirstie Kwarteng
- Sarah Rosengaerten
- Susan Banki
Postdoctoral Fellows
- Julia Morris
- Samantha Fox
- Sara Romero
- Shikha Bhattacharjee Silliman
- Niina Vuolajarvi
- Manaswi Sangraula
- Diana Zacca Thomaz
- Amy Williams
- Jacquelin Kataneksza
Student Researchers
- Angelica Calabrese
- Patrick Ciaschi
- Yingru Chen
- Jiyoung Cho
- Mat Cusick
- Cassidy Giordano
- Vanessa Hershberger
- Sofia Matheu
- Maria Francisca Paz y Mino Maya
- Ana Ramirez
- Yichuan Zhou
- Anjali Bhalodia
- Douglas de Toledo Piza
- Weston Finfer
- Olivia Friedman
- Lina Jaramillo
- Grace Ewing
- Erin Johnson
- Evan Neuwirth
- Kendall Pfeffer
- Guillermina Altomonte
- Holly Dowell
- Shagana Ehamparam
- Amanda Porter
- Daniel Ozoukou
- Sandra Rincón
- Ahad Ali
- Jeanine Marie
- Atul Khera
- Blake Roberts
- Jeanine Marie
- Isaac Andino
- Nikita Deshpande
- Anwesha Sengupta
- Belen Fodde
- Goafengwe Kabubi
- Julie Kim
- Alifiya Mutaher
- Forrest Sparks
- Tzlil Rubenshtein
- Max Helfand
- Aloma Antao
- Ben Serra
- Leah Triber
- Priya Singh
- Claire Harlan
- Alyssa Kropp
- Paula Aimi Kawakami Ishihara
- Daniel Horowitz
- Maya Herman
- Sarah Beranbaum
- Emma Letcher
- Lyndsey Nuebel
- Clara Marina von Loebenstein
- Whitney Mapes
- Nam Pham
- Clover Reshad
- Daniel Smyth
- Katja Starc Card
- Max Stearns
- Sonia Zhang
- Ryan Westphal
- Sameer Jamal
- Nada Salem
- Julia Wieslawa Szagdaj
- Zishan Jiwani
- Melissa Lee
- Victoria Tobar
- Tejaswini Vavilala
- Lea Bernier-Coffineau
- Isabel Arciniegas Guaneme
- Autumn Herndon
- Giselly Meija
- Felippe Ramos
- Manjun Hao
- Marianna Poyares