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Sharry Aiken is an Associate Professor and former Associate Dean (Graduate Studies and Research) at Queen’s Law. In 2019 she was appointed Academic Director of the Graduate Diploma in Immigration and Citizenship Law, assuming broad oversight responsibility for program design and delivery.
Prof. Aiken has 18 years’ teaching experience in the JD program at Queen’s in Immigration Law, Refugee Law, Administrative law and International Human Rights Law. Beyond the law school classroom, Prof. Aiken’s curriculum design experience includes: developing training seminars with accompanying online course materials for refugee adjudicators; serving as Academic Director for the Summer Course on Refugee Issues at York University’s Centre for Refugee Studies; Course Director and instructor for an intensive course in Refugee Law and International Human Rights Law at the American University in Cairo; instructor in Seneca’s Immigration Practitioner Certificate Program; as well as Course Developer and Instructor for Public Law with the undergraduate Certificate in Law at Queen’s (Law 201/701). In addition, Prof. Aiken designed and developed the capstone Immigration Law course for one of the first fully online educational programs in Immigration and Settlement Services aimed at undergraduate students, settlement workers, and public servants. Funded by Metropolis and sponsored by the Joint Centre for Excellence for Research on Immigration and Settlement, the program launched in 2002, with new versions in 2003 and 2006.
Prior to her appointment at Queen’s, Sharry practiced immigration and refugee law with legal aid clinics in Toronto and in private practice. A past president of the Canadian Council for Refugees, Prof. Aiken was co-chair of CCR’s Legal Affairs Committee for over twenty years and pro bono counsel in many precedent-setting immigration cases before the Supreme Court of Canada. In 2002 she was appointed to the Ministerial Advisory Committee on Regulating Immigration Consultants and served as editor of its influential report calling for implementation of a national self-governing framework for immigration consultants.
Prof. Aiken is the former editor-in-chief of Refuge (2001-2011), and current co-editor-in-chief of the PKI Global Justice Journal. Prof. Aiken is also co-editor and co-author of the leading immigration law casebook used in law school classrooms across Canada: “Immigration and Refugee Law: Cases, Materials and Commentary” as well as the monograph, “Migration Law in Canada” in International Encyclopedia of Laws, Wolters Kluwer. Her current research focuses on immigration detention and border policies.