Dr Sandra Pertek is UKRI Future Leaders Fellow at the School of Government and School of Social Policy, and Senior Research Fellow at the International Development Department at the University of Birmingham. Previously, she was Lecturer at the Institute for Global Health and Development, Queen Margaret University and Teaching Fellow (POLSIS) and ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Birmingham, following her role as an Impact and Policy Fellow in the SEREDA project at the Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS), where she is actively affiliated. 

She is an interdisciplinary researcher and social development specialist with over a decade of experience in humanitarian, development, and migration settings. She specialises in the intersection of gender, violence, religion, forced migration and humanitarianism. She has led a number of studies across the Middle East, Africa and Europe; including the “Ukrainian refugees at risk” and “Protecting forcibly displaced women and girls in the Muslim world” projects. 

Currently, she leads a transformative £1.3m UKRI-funded research initiative, “Making Aid Work for Displaced Women”, which focuses on integrating Islamic philanthropy into the international humanitarian system and developing innovative solutions to global forced displacement.

Her research integrates an intersectional and ecological analysis to explore the intersection of gender and religion in forced migration, focusing on resilience and vulnerability. She has led several research assignments in countries such as Ethiopia, Jordan, Poland, Tunisia, Turkey, the UK, and Ukraine.

Her studies, funded by ESRC, AHRC, Research England, the Institute for Global Innovation, Open Society Foundation, Sida and philanthropic donors, contribute to understanding experiences of and responses to GBV and displacement within diverse contexts.

As Senior Policy Advisor on Gender, she authored the Gender Justice Policy of Islamic Relief Worldwide and spearheaded a gender integration strategy into its global operations. Additionally, she has provided consultancy services to various organisations, including the Home Office UK (developing a Theory of Change for Indicators of Integration), GIZ (religious actors mapping in Zambia) and Islamic Development Bank (gender integration into Islamic microfinance), and the European Commission (technical advice). She has also contributed to regional and local migrant women’s organisations.

Sandra’s commitment to strengthening protection in forced displacement is evident through her coordination of multi-stakeholder initiatives, grounded in her policy-oriented and collaborative research. She has published articles on gender-based violence in forced migration and co-authored the monograph, ‘On the Significance of Religion in Violence Against Women and Girls’ (Routledge). Her new monograph, ‘Violence against Women, Religion and Forced Displacement: Experiences and Humanitarian Responses’, is underway.