Savarni Sanka
Program Associate
Savarni joined the Mayors Migration Council as Program Associate in July 2023. Throughout her professional and academic career, she has worked alongside displacement-affected communities to advance migrant justice. Most recently, Savarni was a visiting researcher at the United States Institute of Peace Latin America Program. Before that, she worked with the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, Lutheran Services Carolinas, and political campaigns in her home state of North Carolina. In these roles, Savarni researched and helped implement programs to ensure local Covid-19 responses and civic engagement processes were inclusive of migrants and other marginalized communities.
Savarni has a background in migration policy, advocacy, and international relations, with a particular interest in social policy and polycentric governance as tools to promote migrants’ and refugees’ equity and belonging. She is a candidate for Master of Public Policy at the University of Oxford, where she studies as a Rhodes Scholar. Prior to this, she received a Master of Science degree in Refugee and Forced Migration studies from Oxford. Her dissertation investigated how the politics of narrative shaped the Biden administration’s Central America migration strategy. Savarni earned bachelor’s degrees in Spanish and Politics from Wake Forest University.