Iliana Sarafian is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre for Public Authority and International Development at FLIA, LSE. Iliana’s research is in the fields of minority health and wellbeing, gender, ethnicity, and social inequalities in European contexts, including the UK, Italy, Poland and Bulgaria.  

Iliana’s previous work experience spans international policy and academic fora. At present, she is the Principal Investigator of a British Academy grant exploring resilience and deservingness among Ukrainian Roma refugees in Poland. She is also the Co-investigator of a British Academy grant on COVID-19 Recovery ‘Ethnographies of (Dis)Engagement: Understanding Vaccine Rejection in Chronically Neglected Communities across the G7’, with a specific focus on COVID-19 vaccine uptake and orientations among Roma communities in Italy.  

At FLIA, Iliana is involved in research projects exploring resilience, trust and stigma in a post-COVID world in the UK with Prof Laura Bear, Dr Elizabeth Storer and Dr Nikita Simpson.  

Iliana completed her PhD from the Department of Anthropology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, having received a master’s degree in Gender and Development from the University of Oxford. Her PhD research stems from long-term ethnographic fieldwork among Roma communities in Bulgaria.