Biography
Supervisor: Carlos Vargas-Silva and Ruben Andersson
College Affiliation: Green Templeton College
Ruta Nimkar is an experienced humanitarian and migration professional. She has held regional and country senior management positions and has consulted for donors, UN agencies and NGOs. Ruta was Country Director for the Danish Refugee Council in Iran from 2016 - 2017; in this role, she engaged extensively with government counterparts and collaborated with UN and INGO partners. In addition to her DPhil, she is the Director of Meraki Labs, a consulting company aiming to ensure that refugees co-author all work, as well as migrants and people from conflict-affected communities. Ruta has conducted field and desk-based research on mixed migration routes and smuggling networks in Central Asia, the Horn of Africa and West Africa. Ruta specializes in qualitative data analysis and participatory and mixed-methods research. She focuses on ensuring that research is linked to programming, which arises from long experience working directly with communities to develop new approaches to humanitarian and migration challenges. Ruta's thesis focuses on smuggling ecosystems and how they engage with national and international political dynamics.
Select Publications
An evaluation of progress of the inclusion of refugees in national education systems in the IGAD member States
Report | UNHCR | November 2024
A Widening Moral Rift: The Complex Interactions between EU Externalization and Afghan Border Ecosystems
Article | ANNALS, AAPSS, 709 | June 2024
Principled humanitarian assistance and non-state armed groups
Article | Forced Migration Review, 61 | June 2019
“We are the ones they come to when nobody can help” Afghan smugglers' perceptions of themselves and their communities
Article | IOM Migration Research Series, 56 | 2019
From Bosnia to Baghdad: the Case for Regulating Private Military and Security Companies
Article | Journal of Public & International Affairs, 20 | 2009