Dr. Elizabeth Ferris is the Director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. She is also an ISIM Research Professor at Georgetown and a non-resident senior fellow in Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution. She joined ISIM in Fall 2015 after serving for 9 years as a Senior Fellow and Co-Director of the Brookings Project on Internal Displacement and as an adjunct professor in Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. She served as the interim director of ISIM for the 2017-2018 academic year while Dr. Katharine Donato was on sabbatical.

Prior to joining Brookings in November 2006, Elizabeth spent 20 years working in the field of international humanitarian response, most recently in Geneva, Switzerland at the World Council of Churches. She has also served as Chair of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA), as Research Director for the Life & Peace Institute in Uppsala, Sweden, as Director of the Church World Service Immigration and Refugee Program in New York. She has been a professor at several U.S. universities and served as a Fulbright professor to the Universidad Autónoma de México in Mexico City. She has written or edited six books and many articles on humanitarian and human rights issues which have been published in both academic and policy journals. Her current research interests focus on the politics of humanitarian action and on the role of civil society in protecting displaced populations.

Publications

• "The Global Compact for Migration: An Agenda for Academic Research," in Migration Policy Practice, Vol. 8 Number 4 (November 2018).
• "The Relevance of the Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement for Climate Change-Migration Nexus," in Research Handbook on Climate Change, Migration and the Law, edited by Francois Crepeau and Benoit Mayer. Edward Elgar Publications (October 2017).
• "Access To Durable Solutions Among IDPs In Iraq," ISIM, CCAS and IOM Report co-written with Rochelle Davis, Grace Benton, Lorenza Rossi, Michael Cohen, and others (April 2017).
• “Soft Law, Migration and Climate Change Governance,” co-written with Jonas Bergmann in Journal of Human Rights and the Environment, Volume 8 Issue 1 (March 2017).
• "US Leadership and the International Refugee Regime," co-written with Susan Martin in Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees (Winter 2017).
• “Humanitarian Protection Perspectives for Disaster Risk Reduction Including Climate Change Adaptation,” in Handbook of Disaster Risk Reduction Including Climate Change Adaptation, edited by Ilan Kelman, Jessica Mercer, and JC Gaillard. Routledge (May 2017).
• "International Responsibility, Protection and Displacement: Exploring the Connections between R2P, Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons," in Global Responsibility to Protect, Volume 8 Issue 4 (2016).
• Consequences of Chaos: Syrian Displacement and the Failure to Protect, co-written with Kemal Kirişci. Brookings Institution Press (April 2016).
• "Syrian Refugees in Turkey: Challenges and Impact on Turkey’s Regional Policies," in The AKP and Turkish Foreign Policy in the Middle East, Volume 5, pp. 25-30. Middle East Centre, London School of Economics (April 2016).
• "Displacement and Statelessness," in International Affairs Forum, Volume 1 Issue 1, pp. 79-91 (Winter 2016).
• "Not Likely to Go Home: Syrian Refugees and the Challenges to Turkey – and the International Community", co-written with Kemal Kirisci. The Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) at Brookings (September 2015).
• "From Responsibility to Response: Assessing National Approaches to Internal Displacement", report co-written with Erin Mooney and Chareen Stark (November 2011).
• The Politics of Protection: The Limits of Humanitarian Action, Brookings Institution Press (March 2011).
• Refugees, Migration and Global Governance: Negotiating the Global Compacts, with Katharine Donato. Routledge Press, 2019.
• Special issue on the Global Compacts, International Migration. 2019. Co-edited with Susan Martin and introductory article.
• “Climate Change, Migration, Law and Global Governance.” University of North Carolina Law Review, 2019.
• “Protecting Displaced Women and Girls,” in The Oxford Handbook of Women, Peace and Security, ed. by Sara E. Davies and Jacqui Tone. Oxford University Press, 2019.
• A Call to Action: The Report of the World Refugee Council. Ottawa: Center for International Governance Innovation. January 2019. https://www.worldrefugeecouncil.org/
• The Global Compacts and Environmental Drivers. With Susan Martin, Kanta Kumari and Jonas Bergmann. KNOMAD/World Bank Policy Brief. 2018. http://www.knomad.org/publication/global-compacts-and-environmental-drivers
• “When People Flee: Rule of Law and Forced Migration,” with Paula Rudnicka. American Bar Association, Rule of Law Initiative, April 2018. https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/images/rule_of_law/maestro-images/aba-roli-issue-paper-when-people-flee-rule-of-law-and-forced-migration-0418.pdf
• “Border Security, Migration Governance and Sovereignty,” with Susan Martin, IOM’s Migration Policy Practice, vol. VII, no. 3, Oct-November 2017. http://publications.iom.int/books/migration-policy-practice-vol-vii-number-3-october-november-2017
• "In Search of Commitments: The Refugee Summits of 2016. Kaldor Centre Policy Briefs, 3, November
  2016. http://www.kaldorcentre.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/Policy_Brief_3_A4_final.pdf