While at Stanford, he founded Students Against Genocide (SAGE) a national organisation which filed a suit against the US government for the release of records relating to human rights violations committed by Bosnian Serb forces in Bosnia.  He also holds degrees in Political Science, European Studies, Philosophy and Modern Languages from Stanford University, the London School of Economics, Université Libre de Bruxelles and University of Southampton.

Prior to his current appointment he was Jean Monnet Chair of Political Geography at Oxford Brookes University.  He has held previous appointments at both British and American universities in the fields of International and Development Studies, Social Policy and Comparative Politics and also worked for the U.S. Institute of Peace.  He has served as a consultant to international and development agencies including DFID, the World Bank, Council of Europe, Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, as well as the governments of Albania and Bosnia and Herzegovina.  In 2001, he was responsible for designing a scoping study for a £12 million programme on Safety, Security and Access to Justice in the Balkans.

He is widely published and cited on issues of human rights, social policy, migration, governance and political transition, labour, health and security.  Fieldwork and research experience includes studies on Albania, Bangladesh, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, France, Germany, Italy, Jamaica, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, FYR Macedonia, Mexico, Moldova, Montenegro, Myanmar, Poland, Russian Federation, Serbia, Slovakia Slovenia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, United Kingdom and USA.  His academic profile includes over 40 research publications which have appeared in Citizenship Studies, Comparative Education Review, Contemporary European History, Forced Migration Review, Human Rights Review, Journal of Human Rights, International Journal on Multicultural Societies, International Studies Compendium, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Journal of European Social Policy, Journal of South East European and Black Sea, Politics, Political Studies, Journal of Refugee Studies, South European Politics and Society.  He has also published several reviews, comments and letters in the New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Times, Guardian and Times Higher Education Supplement. 

His work has been recognised with several honours including two professorial chairs, a nomination for the Lisa Gilad Prize for best article in the Journal of Refugee Studies by an author under the age of 40 by the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration, and appointments and internships at the US Agency for International Development, International Labour Organization, World Bank and US Department of Education.

He regularly advises UK courts on matters of human rights, with respect to immigration and asylum cases and has also been contracted to assist in similar matters in the USA and Australia.  His research has been cited in immigration proceedings in the UK, Australia, and USA, and by the UK’s Immigration and Nationality Directorate.  In 2007, he founded the International Observatory on Statelessness, a clearinghouse for NGOs, academics, advocacy groups and policy-makers working on issues of statelessness.