Aleksandra Jolkina is a researcher in European and comparative migration and asylum law. She received her PhD in law from Queen Mary University of London (2021) and has previously taught EU law at London School of Economics (LSE). Her academic interests currently concentrate on two broad areas: family migration and access to international protection. Her PhD thesis (under contract with Brill), critically examines the concept of marriages of convenience in EU and UK law in so far as it concerns the exercise of EU citizens’ right to family reunion. For her PhD, she has received the ELFA 2021 award for the best doctoral thesis on European law (proxime accessit).

Aleksandra is currently a Fellow of re:constitution, a joint programme of the Berlin-based Forum Transregionale Studien and Democracy Reporting International, and a visiting researcher at the Amsterdam Centre for Migration and Refugee Law. Her research project aims to provide a comparative analysis of Latvian, Lithuanian and Polish responses to the situation at the EU’s border with Belarus, particularly where it concerns access to the asylum procedure and compliance with the Rule of Law. Apart from her academic work, Aleksandra has over a decade of experience in journalism. Alongside her PhD research in London, she was part-based in Bonn where she worked for Germany’s international broadcaster Deutsche Welle.