
Dr. Stephanie J. Silverman
Researcher, consultant, educator,
editor, scholar
About Me
I am a global expert on immigration control and a widely-published researcher and writer.
I hold a DPhil / PhD in Politics and International Relations from the University of Oxford, where I studied as a Commonwealth Scholar. I am currently a research associate at the Centre for Refugee Studies and co-lead the Thinking Forward Network, a feminist human rights consultancy firm. I organize through the grassroots Rights of NonStatus Women Network in Toronto.
For six years, I was on faculty at the Ethics, Society, and Law Program at Trinity College in the University of Toronto. I was awarded the Bora Laskin National Fellowship in Human Rights Research, and postdoctoral fellowships at the Nathanson Centre at Osgoode Hall, and the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs in the University of Ottawa.
I currently serve the federal government through advising the Refugee Protection Division at the Immigration and Refugee Board, and hold an academic affiliation at the Centre for Refugee Studies. I also advise the International Detention Coalition.
In my free time, I hike, read fiction, and hang out with my spouse, kids, and dog named Bear.

Summary of Qualifications
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15 years of legal, policy, and qualitative anti-racist research and writing with high-level and grassroots stakeholders in Canada and around the world
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Globally-recognized expert in immigration detention policies, laws, and practices
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Experienced in managing large, multilevel research teams
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Trained strategist in knowledge production, translation, dissemination, and mobilization
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Recipient of 18 individual and group research grants
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Award-winning instructor for university students, specializing in work-integrated learning and community-based research methodologies
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Experienced convener of collaborative workshops, conferences, and online networks and discussion groups for government, NGOs, and academics
The Detention Estate: Canada’s Shadow Prison System and the Future of Migration Control. (McGill-Queens University Press)
Examining the ‘National Risk Assessment for Detention’ process: an intersectional analysis of detaining ‘dangerousness’ in Canada, with E. Kaytaz. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
'What Habeas Corpus Can (and Cannot) Do for Immigration Detainees: Scotland v Canada and the Injustices of Imprisoning Migrants', Canadian Journal of Law and Society 34 (01), 145 - 61.
Immigration Detention: The Migration of a Policy and its Human Impact, Co-edited with A. Nethery. Routledge Books.
Immigration Detention in the UK, Migration Observatory Briefings. Centre on Migration, Policy and Society, Oxford.
2023
2020
2019
2015/17
2010...2020