Migration, policy, racialisation and community participation 

Ima is an experienced clinician, lecturer, researcher and project manager and has spent most of her career working with marginalised groups: initially pregnant women in the poorest parts of London and Glasgow, and in more recent years with refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants in Scotland. Her focus is to evidence the experience and perspectives of those underrepresented in the structural processes and organisations which dominate the cultural, political and economic landscape of Scotland. 

Her research interest is in racialisation,  migration- in particular transnational workforce issues, skills accreditation, ethical recruitment processes, migrant health and healthcare infrastructure needs and gendered migration policy. Ima is interested in the interface between research based policy and the experience of those racialised. Her work engages from the perspective those racialised. 

She currently works with cross party parliamentarians, migrant organisations, activists, artists, researchers and policymakers investigating and supporting the development of Scotland’s local, national and international perspective and narrative on aspects of migration and immigration. This work spans across working to develop aspects of Scotland's national cultural strategy to Ministerial working within gender pay gap.

She is a co convenor of Glasgow Refugee Asylum and Migration Network (GRAMNet: http://www.gla.ac.uk/research/az/gramnet/  

She is Chair of the Board for Centre for Contemporary Art CCA Glasgow; Board member for the ILFA project which supports communities of colour and migrants develop skills to navigate the discrimination they experience http://ilfaproject.org.uk/.

She supports through steering group membership a range of organisations such as Migrant Voice http://www.migrantvoice.org/ developed by communities to increase representation at all levels of social and political media engagement. 

She is currently Principal Investigator on two projects: Development of a migrant skills recognition and accreditation hub for Scotland and Enhancing transcultural participation – through preventing female genital mutilation(FGM). 

She is supervisor for PhD students working with Roma and African communities. Interested to supervise MSc and PhD students researching aspects of migration, workrforce issues, migrant health and gender.