Alicja’s work, which involves field interventions, international projects, and research, focuses on the effects of armed conflict, displacement, and structural inequality on children.
Over the past nine years, Alicja has worked across the Middle East and Africa to enhance trauma-informed, context-based learning opportunities for youth in crisis-affected areas, with a particular focus on displacement from Syria and Palestine.
She has designed trauma-informed social-emotional learning programs for students, implemented youth empowerment art workshops in Yemeni refugee settings in Djibouti, conducted fieldwork in Turkey, Ghana, Jordan, Kenya, China, and South Africa, and examined policy gaps in the protection of unaccompanied child migrants in France. Alicja has collaborated with, among others, the Senior Counsel for Children’s Rights at Human Rights Watch, UNICEF, Global TIES for Children, the Disaster and Emergency Management Authority of Turkey, and the International Humanitarian City in Dubai. Her current research focus is on peacekeeping deployment and attacks on healthcare in armed conflict settings.
Originally from Poland, Alicja holds a B.A. (Honours) in Social Research and Public Policy from New York University Abu Dhabi, where she also pursued intensive legal and Arabic language studies. She joined the University of Oxford as a 2025 ORLEN Bona Fide Scholar. Following her Master’s degree in Evidence-Based Social Intervention and Policy Evaluation at Oxford’s Department of Social Policy and Intervention, Alicja will pursue a Master of Laws (LL.M.) in International Children’s Rights at Leiden Law School as the recipient of the 2026 Leiden Excellence Scholarship+.
In her free time, Alicja enjoys long runs, sculpting, and cooking with friends.
