Vera Eccarius-Kelly is professor of Comparative Politics in the department of Political Science & International Relations at Siena College in Albany, New York. She currently also holds the position of Academic Community Engagement Scholar-in-Residence (2019-2025). In that role, she is responsible for creating collaborations with refugee communities and to shape communal projects related to migration and refugee studies, refugee resettlement efforts, and ECAR (Every Campus a Refuge). Her research projects focus on ethnic nationalism and diaspora politics; revolutionary movements in the Middle East and Latin America; transnational social mobilization, ethnic lobbying, and cultural expressions of nationalism. Among her recent publications are “Civic and Political Engagement among Muslim and Arab Americans” (Edinburgh Press edited collection, 2024); “Digital Storytelling and Visual Representations: refugees disrupt stereotypical narratives” in Collaborations Journal: A Journal of Community-Based Research and Practice 5, 1 (Winter 2022); “Kurdish Lobbying and Political Activism in the United States,” in a book she co-edited titled Kurdish Autonomy and U.S. Foreign Policy (Peter Lang, 2021); and a chapter in the Art of Minorities (Edinburgh Press, 2020) that is titled “‘Do I Even Exist?’ Kurdish Diaspora Artists Reflect on Imaginary Exhibits in a Kurdistan Museum.” Eccarius-Kelly has published articles in journals such as Kurdish Studies, Peace Review, South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, etc. Her book chapters have appeared in Edinburgh Press, Lexington Press, Mazda Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Roman & Littlefield, the University of Utah Press, and Walter de Gruyter. In addition to her teaching and research activities, Eccarius-Kelly serves as an expert witness for asylum cases held in New York immigration court, participates weekly in political talk shows on WAMC radio, an affiliate of National Public Radio (NPR), and holds several leadership positions on nonprofit boards.