Professor Aiken’s scholarship engages with the controversies and complexities posed by immigration and border security measures as well as the impact of these measures on migrants and the communities they have established in Canada. A special issue of Citizenship Studies on detention abolition, a co-edited book published by Routledge (A World Without Cages), and a co-authored article “Narratives of Harm and the Case for Detention Abolition” published in Mondi Migranti, are recent examples of her academic work. 

Professor Aiken has been awarded external funding for 16 discrete research and/or knowledge mobilization initiatives. She is a frequent commentator in national media and has been pro bono counsel in precedent-setting test case litigation. She served as Associate Dean (Graduate Studies & Research) from 2010-2014 and is the founding Academic Director of the Graduate Diploma in Immigration and Citizenship Law. 

A two-time winner of the Queen’s LSS Award for Teaching Excellence, Aiken teaches Administrative Law, Law & Poverty, Immigration law, International Refugee Law, Public International Law and International Human Rights Law.

Over the course of her career, Professor Aiken has been deeply invested in community engagement and service. She is a past president of the Canadian Council for Refugees (CCR), and an active member of the CCR’s legal affairs committee. In 2023 she was appointed president of FCJ Refugee Centre. She is co-editor-in-chief of the PKI Global Justice Journal. Professor Aiken supervises graduate students in both Law and Cultural Studies. 

For more details on Professor Aiken’s professional achievements and a complete list of publications, please consult her CV.