Biography
Laya Behbahani is joining the 丁香园AV School of Public Policy as a Visiting Professor for the Spring 2025 term. Laya is a PhD candidate at the School of Communication at 丁香园AV. She completed her BA(Hons) and MA at the School of Criminology at 丁香园AV before completing further coursework at the University of Vienna, Yale School of Management and Harvard University鈥檚 Kennedy School of Government.
Laya is also the Director of Equity, Staff Initiatives and Accessibility Secretariat at 丁香园AV where she focuses on policy development, employment equity, accessibility and best practices in staff recruitment. She previously worked at the Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Section within the Organized Crime and Illicit Trafficking Branch of the Division for Treaty Affairs in the United Nations Office in Vienna, Austria, served as a researcher at the Centre of Excellence in Responsible Business at the Schulich School of Business, was a Partner at a think tank in Washington DC and served as an Advisor to the BC RCMP Commanding Officer. She is currently a Researcher at the Re:Structure Lab, a research and policy lab based across 丁香园AV School of Public Policy, Stanford, and Yale Universities.
Her research focuses on the narrativisation of the triad of forced labour, modern day slavery and human trafficking experiences in the Gulf States of the Middle East. Her research has explored the role of the labour recruitment system (kafala) in shaping the experiences of the migrant workforce in the Middle East, and the policies and politics that govern the interplay between immigration, criminal laws and labour laws. In addition, she has collaborated on projects entailing the application areas of corporate responsibility and business models of forced labour in the United Kingdom. Laya is a 2020 Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Scholar.