Gurmeet Kaur is doctoral candidate from the Department Cum Centre for Women’s Studies and Development, Panjab University under the supervision of Prof. Vijay Kumar Singh, Chairperson of Chinese and Tibetan Languages, Panjab University. Her focus area is refugees in South Asia. She is specifically focusing on refugee women in India. Gurmeet has published three research papers in an edited book and international journals. She has attended more than 12 workshops, conferences and seminars on themes including women’s issues and Buddhist studies. She has presented six papers in various national and international conferences in India. She is a member of various academic bodies and networks including Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network and Kaldor Emerging Scholars. She has been awarded the Merit certificate three times by Panjab University for her academic excellence. She also stood second in a paper presentation in the Chandigarh Social Science Congress in 2017. She has taught Gender Studies in the Institute of Social Science Education and Research. She has also worked with organizations like IBM, SAGE sustainability, WECAN International, Lha Charitable trust and Ad HOC Global. She was awarded the Border Studies Scholarship by for writing a research paper for SAARC established South Asian University in January 2019. She is also an active member of the Young Scholars Initiative; she organized a session on Gender and Economics for Young Scholar Initiative Asia Convening – Institute on New Economic Thinking in Hanoi, Vietnam.
Gurmeet is passionate about women’s issues and is trying to build a career in the academic field. Notwithstanding the love of her country, she admits there are shortcomings in the policies regarding forced migration. It is one of the reasons she strongly believes in IWB because she feels addressing the issues on the IWB platform may serve to highlight and challenge these shortcomings.