William Paja

William is currently pursuing the MPhil in Development Studies at the Department of International Development. His work focuses on the political economy of international migration policy issues as they relate to forced migration and refugees, the implications of which have significant ramifications for human rights governance and the legal conceptions of protected persons. His MPhil dissertation will explore how international law operates at the intersections between socioeconomic privilege, development, and migration and further interrogate how human rights-based migration governance manifests itself in the United Kingdom and more broadly the European Union. He is particularly interested in how quantitative and qualitative evidence can inform current debates on migration and development policy.

Before moving to the UK, William was awarded the Lombard Public Service Fellowship and served as a Project Development Fellow with the UN Migration Agency (IOM) in San Jose, Costa Rica, where he assisted national and regional projects concerning seasonal labour migration, emergency response, and crisis management. Previously, William was a management consultant with The Economist (EIU Canback) in Boston, leveraging predictive analytics and statistical modeling for clients in developing countries, including India, Paraguay, Chile, South Africa, Zambia, Mozambique, Tanzania, and Nigeria among others.

William holds a bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College, where he double-majored in Economics and Geography.