Assoc Prof Sonja Ayeb-Karlsson's research is broad and interdisciplinary with a particular focus on policy, intersectionality, and violence, as well as their overlaps with migration, refugees and trapped populations, trafficking or health and mental wellbeing. She is based at the Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction where she leads the ‘Everyday Disasters and Violences Research Group’ and two modules on humanitarian policy and responses to violence and marginalisation.
Assoc Prof Ayeb-Karlsson is also an Honorary Senior Researcher at the UN University’s Migration Section in Bonn, Germany, she leads the mental health work of the Lancet Countdown, and was part of the ‘Royal College of Psychiatrist’s Climate Emergency and Mental Health Task and Finish Group’. She is a core member of the SHERA research group and on the Hague Mothers UK steering committee. She is an associate editor for and on the editorial boards of four international high impact academic journals. Her work is well-published and widely covered by media outlets across the world.
Currently, she is particularly interested in furthering our understanding of policy protection vs. lack of protection, psychologically ‘trapped’ populations or legal entrapment, and safeguarding through specific legal systems and policy tools (such as Family and Criminal Law, the Human Rights Act, the Istanbul Convention, and the Convention on the Rights of the Child).
Assoc Prof Ayeb-Karlsson is available for PhD supervision in any of these research areas as well as work linked to the study of (im)mobility, gender-based and structural violence, conflict and disasters, non-economic loss and damage and other policy areas focused on the climate-violence-health loss nexus, Violence Against Women and Children (conflict, interpersonal, and domestic), child sexual abuse, exploitation and human trafficking, as well as policy and legal weaponisation or lawfare such as through the use of so-called 'parental alienation' or Hague parental ‘abduction’ proceedings to continue legal abuse and coercive control.
Experience
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2023–presentAssociate Professor in Policy and Intersectionality, IRDR, UCL
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2022–2023Lecturer in Climate, Policy and Intersectionality, IRDR, UCL
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2015–2022Research fellow, University of Sussex / IDS
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2018–2022Senior researcher, UNU-EHS
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2018–2020Lecturer in Global Health, BSMS, University of Sussex
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2013–2018Project manager, UNU-EHS
Education
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2018University of Sussex and IDS (UK), PhD in Development Studies
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2011Stockholm University (Sweden) and Universidade Federal Fluminense (Brazil), B.Sc. International Relations
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2009Gotland University (Sweden), M.A. Ethnology (Culture Studies)
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2009Södertörn University (Sweden), B.A. European Studies (Ethnology)
Publications
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2023Are asylum seekers and refugees provided with appropriate mental health support in the United Kingdom?, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies
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2023Investigating the conditions of vulnerability experienced by migrant workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Kerala, India, Disasters
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2023Dimensions of wellbeing and recognitional justice of migrant workers during the COVID-19 lockdown in Kerala, India, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
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2023The making of India's COVID-19 disaster: A disaster risk management (DRM) assemblage analysis, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
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2023The Impact of Drought on HIV Care in Rural South Africa: An Interrupted Time Series Analysis, EcoHealth
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2023The 2023 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: the imperative for a health-centred response in a world facing irreversible harms, Lancet
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2023Waiting for the wave, but missing the tide: Case studies of climate-related (im)mobility and health, Journal of Migration and Health
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2023Stories of Loss and Healing: Connecting Non- Economic Loss and Damage, Gender-Based Violence and Wellbeing Erosion in the Asia-Pacific Region, Climatic Change
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2023A future agenda for research on climate change and human mobility, International Migration
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2022The 2022 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: health at the mercy of fossil fuels, Lancet
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2022Economic, Social and Demographic impacts of Drought on treatment adherence among people living with HIV in rural South Africa: a qualitative analysis, Climate Risk Management
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2022Exploring linkages between drought and HIV treatment adherence in Africa: A Systematic Review, Lancet Planetary Health
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2022Who is the climate-induced trapped figure?, WIREs Climate Change
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2022Island Stories: Mapping the (im)mobility trends of slow onset environmental processes in three island groups of the Philippines, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
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2022Topic modelling exposes disciplinary divergence in research on the nexus between human mobility and the environment, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
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2022A global mental health opportunity: How can cultural concepts of distress broaden the construct of immobility?, Global Environmental Change
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2022How do population movements fit within the framework of systemic risk?, Progress in Disaster Science
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2022Human mobility, natural resources and sustainability: A review and research gap analysis, Sustainability Science
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2022A healthy planet for a healthy mind , One Earth
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2022Tracking the impacts of climate change on human health via indicators: lessons from the Lancet Countdown, BMC Public Health
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2021Correlating heatwaves and relative humidity with suicide (fatal intentional self-harm), Scientific Reports
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2021The 2020 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: responding to converging crises, Lancet
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2021‘Seeing with Empty Eyes’: a systems approach to understand climate change and mental health in Bangladesh, Climatic Change
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2021Climate risk in Africa: adaptation and resilience, Springer Nature
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2021COVID-19 in India: Who are we leaving behind?, Progress in Disaster Science
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2021A review of mental health and wellbeing under climate change in small island developing states (SIDS), Environmental Research Letters
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2021The 2021 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: code red for a healthy future, Lancet
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2020‘I do not like her going to the shelter’: Stories on gendered disaster (im)mobility and wellbeing loss in coastal Bangladesh, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
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2020Impacts of the Global Gag Rule on sexual and reproductive health and rights in the Global South: A scoping review, Global Public Health
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2020A Review of Estimating Population Exposure to Sea-Level Rise and the Relevance for Migration, Environmental Research Letters
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2020‘When we were children we had dreams, then we came to Dhaka to survive’: urban stories connecting loss of wellbeing, displacement and (im)mobility, Climate and Development
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2020No power without knowledge: a discursive subjectivities approach to investigate climate-induced (im)mobility and wellbeing, Social Sciences
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2020When the disaster strikes: gendered (im)mobility in Bangladesh, Climate Risk Management
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2020COVID-19: how do you self-isolate in a refugee camp?, International Journal of Public Health
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2020Trapped in the prison of the mind: notions of climate-induced (im)mobility decision-making and wellbeing from an urban informal settlement in Bangladesh, Palgrave Communications
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2019Climate change, environmental stress and loss of livelihoods can push people towards illegal activities: a case study from coastal Bangladesh, Climate and Development
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2019The 2019 report of The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: ensuring that the health of a child born today is not defined by a changing climate, Lancet
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2019I will not go, I cannot go: Cultural and social limits to disaster preparedness in Asia, Africa and Oceania, Disasters
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2019Embracing uncertainty: A discursive approach to understanding pathways for climate adaptation in Senegal, Regional Environmental Change
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2018Environmental migrants, climate ‘refugees’ and sun-seeking expats: capturing the larger context of migration in a changing climate through appropriate and effective behavioural research, Routledge handbook of environmental displacement and migration
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2018The 2018 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: shaping the health of nations for centuries to come, Lancet
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2018A discursive review of the textual use of ‘trapped’ in environmental migration studies: The conceptual birth and troubled teenage years of Trapped Populations, Ambio
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2018The Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: from 25 years of inaction to a global transformation for public health, Lancet
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2017The Lancet countdown: tracking progress on health and climate change, Lancet
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2016A people-centred perspective on climate change, environmental stress, and livelihood resilience in Bangladesh, Sustainability Science
Grants and Contracts
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2023Uncovering the Hidden Dangers: The Risk of Human Trafficking for Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking and Refugee Children in Home Office-Operated Hotels
- Role:
- PI
- Funding Source:
- Modern Slavery Policy and Evidence Centre, Bingham Centre
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2022How does Violence Against Children intersect with Climate Change (VACCC)
- Role:
- Co-PI
- Funding Source:
- UCL Grand Challenge
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2021Loss and Damage associated with climate change in Vietnam: A case study of the agricultural sector in Ha Tinh and Quang Binh provinces part of Support to Vietnam for the Implementation of the Paris Agreement (SIPA)
- Role:
- Co-I
- Funding Source:
- GIZ
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2021PROtecting the WELLbeing of MIGRANTS in India during the COVID-19 pandemic (PROWELLMIGRANTS)
- Role:
- PI
- Funding Source:
- Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft
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2019Internal Migration in the Philippines: Adaptation to ClimaTe Change (IMPACT)
- Role:
- PI
- Funding Source:
- GIZ
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2019DROught, Poverty, and HIV Drug RESISTance: threat to resilience in a vulnerable rural setting (DROP-RESIST)
- Role:
- Co-I
- Funding Source:
- SSPR
- UCL, London
- Website
- @s_ayebkarlsson
- Article Feed
- s.karlsson@ucl.ac.uk
- ORCID
- Joined
