Melissa Kelly’s research takes a comparative approach to understanding how migrants and refugees experience settlement, integration and belonging in different spatial contexts. Currently she is studying how intersectional factors like race, gender and class impact how different categories of migrants experience everyday life in selected small and medium-sized cities across Canada.

As as a doctoral student, Melissa was affiliated with the Graduate School in Population Dynamics and Public Policy at Umeå University, and spent six months as a visiting research student at the Migration Research Unit at University College London. Her doctoral research investigated the economic, social and cultural factors influencing the onward migration of refugees from Sweden to third countries.

Melissa was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of the Free State in South Africa and a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies at Carleton University. She has published journal articles and book chapters based on both her doctoral and postdoctoral research.

Melissa is currently affiliated with the Borders in Globalization (BIG) network based at the University of Victoria and is co-editing two books for the network. In addition to her academic pursuits, she has contributed extensively to the development of labour market and immigration policies and programs for the Government of Canada.