Ayelet Shachar

Ayelet Shachar is the R.F. Harney Professor and Director of the Ethnic, Immigration and Pluralism Studies Program at the University of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. She holds professorships in Law, Political Science, and Global Affairs. Previously, she was a Scientific Member of the Max Planck Society and Director at their Institute for Religious and Ethnic Diversity. Her research focuses on citizenship, migration, multiculturalism, and global inequality, with notable works like Multicultural Jurisdictions (2001) and The Birthright Lottery (2009), which earned prestigious awards including the APSA Career Achievement Award (2024) and the Leibniz Prize (2019). She also leads The Oxford Handbook of Citizenship (2017) and explores legal frameworks to address migration control and global justice.

• Education: J.S.D. (Yale, 1997), LL.M. (Yale, 1995), LL.B. & B.A. (Tel Aviv University, 1993).
• Affiliations: Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, and NYU visiting professorships; Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada; Advisory roles at CIFAR and Max Planck-Cambridge Centre.

Her research interests include rethinking borders, migration policies, and gender equality within multicultural frameworks. Recent work The Shifting Border (2020) analyzes modern migration control strategies. Awards include the APSA’s top career honor and Germany’s Leibniz Prize. She advises global institutions like the World Bank and EU research services.

Awards & Grants: Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize (2019), APSA Migration Career Achievement (2024), multiple fellowships (e.g., IAS Princeton, Fulbright).

Labs/Teams: Leads the “Transformations of Citizenship” group at Goethe University Frankfurt’s Normative Orders Research Centre. Collaborates internationally via transnational workshops like Lawless Zones, Rightless Subjects (2025).