Yvonne Su

Dr. Yvonne Su is a Visiting Scientist at Harvard University and an Associate Professor at York University. She is also affiliated with the UNHCR, University of Oxford, the International Migration Institute, and the Centre for Refugee Studies. An interdisciplinary scholar researching transnational issues, her expertise spans immigration, forced migration, queer migration, climate change adaptation and climate (im)mobilities. Her research adopts a policy-oriented and community-based approach, undertaking regionally contextualized social science research across the Global South, focusing on Latin America and the Asia-Pacific region.

In the last five years, Dr. Su has secured over $12 million in external research funding. Her work is supported by multiple New Frontiers in Research Fund grants comparing climate change adaptation in Bangladesh, Ghana, the Philippines, the Canadian Arctic, and Alaska. She has also won multiple Social Science and Humanities Research Council grants for multi-disciplinary research in Brazil, Colombia, and the Philippines.

In Latin America, Dr. Su has been conducting high-risk research on a concept she coined, “intersecting precarity” - the combination of homophobia, xenophobia, transphobia, and gender-based violence - experienced by marginalized groups such as asylum seekers, refugees, and undocumented migrants. She examines this in the case of Venezuelan LGBTQ+ migrants and refugees in the unstable border cities of Pacaraima, Boa Vista, and Manaus in Brazil and Cúcuta in Colombia.

In the Asia-Pacific region, Dr. Su has spent over a decade examining the socio-ecological impacts of climate change, focusing on how social inequalities shape communities’ adaptive capacities and disaster responses. Her research on Indigenous knowledge systems and disaster risk reduction has been cited in major reports, including the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report. Her latest research agenda takes a transdisciplinary approach to analyzing critical minerals and global supply chains.

As an interdisciplinary migration expert with lived experiences of migration, Dr. Su is committed to critically engaged research that examines contemporary transboundary migration challenges through a Global South lens, centring marginalized communities and advancing the decolonization of research and knowledge production.

Fellowships and Appointments:
Expert, UNHCR
Research Fellow, COMPAS, University of Oxford
Fellow, International Migration Institute, University of Amsterdam