Special Advisor and Web Content Creator
Alka Kumar, Ph.D., is a Research Affiliate with the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration program at the Toronto Metropolitan University. With education and work experience in the humanities and in interdisciplinary social sciences – literary studies, migration, and peace studies – her work lives between research and practice, spanning across sectors, with a focus on social justice and capacity building for racialized communities. Given she has equal interest in research and practice, her objective in all her work is to bridge these two worlds that are often quite separate from each other.
Carrying her own ‘lived experience’ of migration, her areas of expertise include facilitation of skills and training workshops, with the objective of supporting new Canadians and other individuals in building their capacity, including preparing them for workplace success through individualized career transition and employment pathways planning. Alka develops teaching resources around topics such as Workplace Communication and Business English, Conflict Management and Resolution; and narrative techniques involving storytelling to help program participants in achieving their self-improvement goals.
In a consulting role, Alka undertakes projects with organizations that involve research, writing, and workshop facilitation as well as stakeholder engagements, strategy development, and leadership training.
