Biography
Ms. Jefferies is a Teaching Fellow and Scientia PhD Scholar at the University of New South Wales. She is also an affiliate of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law and a Visiting Scholar at the UCLA Center for the Study of International Migration. Ms. Jefferies has more than 10 years of experience practicing asylum and refugee law before United States federal administrative agencies, the U.S. District Court for the District of...view more
Ms. Jefferies is a Teaching Fellow and Scientia PhD Scholar at the University of New South Wales. She is also an affiliate of the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law and a Visiting Scholar at the UCLA Center for the Study of International Migration. Ms. Jefferies has more than 10 years of experience practicing asylum and refugee law before United States federal administrative agencies, the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit. In 2011, she earned her Master of Studies at the University of Oxford in international human rights law. Ms. Jefferies previously served as the American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) Arizona Chapter Chair and is a Martindale-Hubbell AV Preeminent-rated attorney.
My Awards
2018-2019 PLuS Alliance International Interdisciplinary Researcher
2018 National Advocate of the Year, Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota
2017 Special Recognition Award, Advocates for Human Rights
My Research Activities
My research explores the pathways, drivers and effects of legal consciousness and norm internalisation in official decision-making within transnational human rights frameworks. The overarching theme of the work is tackling complex – and often hidden – problems in refugee law and policy through the generation of original data and analysis to inform and influence policy implementation and development. The research links the fields of International Refugee Law, Human Rights Law, Administrative Law, and Constitutional Law, while drawing interdisciplinary connections with sociology and policy implementation studies. I combine doctrinal review with empirical and data-driven social science methods to narrow the gap between legal theory and practice, while exploring and developing mechanisms to address “wicked problems” in the migration and refugee law space. My current research agenda consists of two distinct, but related projects: (1) an investigation of international legal compliance which will produce empirical data identifying agents and pathways of internalization in the implementation of transnational refugee law; and (2) an interdisciplinary exploration of how the use of technology influences policy development and State operational compliance with legal norms in the migration and asylum framework.
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ORCID as entered in ROS
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0534-9637