Latvia, Russia, Ukraine

Dr Aleksandra Ancite-Jepifánova is a legal scholar working at the intersection of migration, refugee, and nationality law, conflict-related displacement, and human rights. Her research combines legal analysis with empirical fieldwork and draws on two decades of experience across the UK, Germany, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East.

She holds a PhD in Law from Queen Mary University of London and is affiliated with the Refugee Law Initiative at the University of London and the Democracy Institute at Central European University. She has previously taught and held research positions and fellowships at institutions including King’s College London, the CEU Democracy Institute’s Rule of Law Clinic, LSE, Forum Transregionale Studien, and the Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies (bicc).

Her areas of expertise include family reunification in EU and UK law; the EU-Belarus border crisis and the legal and political construction of migrant instrumentalisation; changes in migration and citizenship laws following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; and the displacement and protection of Iraqi Yezidis in the aftermath of the ISIS genocide. She is the author of The Concept of Marriages of Convenience in EU Free Movement Law: EU and UK Perspectives (Brill, 2024) and is currently working on her second monograph on the legal construction of migrant instrumentalisation and its implications for refugee protection at the EU’s external borders.