Dr Irfan is Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Race, Gender and Postcolonial Studies at University College London (UCL). She was previously a lecturer at the University of Oxford’s Refugee Studies Centre and has also taught at the London School of Economics and the University of Sussex.

Dr Irfan is a leading expert on Palestinian refugee rights, the UN and UNRWA. Her work has appeared in academic publications including the Journal of Refugee Studies, Journal of Palestine Studies, Contemporary Levant, Forced Migration Review and Jerusalem Quarterly. Her first book, Refuge and Resistance: Palestinians and the International Refugee System, was recently published with Columbia University Press.

She is lead researcher on the British Academy-funded project Borders, Global Governance and the Refugee, 1947-51. The project website Partition Displacements can be found here.

In addition to her academic work, Dr Irfan is a media commentator and analyst on Palestinian politics, and provides expert opinion and consultancy in asylum cases.