Since September 2025, Kinan Alajak is a Research Fellow at the DeZIM Institute, where he focuses on data, methods, and monitoring in migration research. He is also a PhD Candidate at Utrecht University and Utrecht University of Applied Sciences under the supervision of Prof. Albert Meijer and Dr. Karin Geuijen. His doctoral research examines the intersection of surveillance technologies in border regimes, state violence, and human rights.
His interdisciplinary work combines qualitative methods with advanced statistical techniques. Selected projects include: a collaboration with the TRANSMIT Project, applying model-based clustering to study heterogeneous vulnerabilities among refugees and host communities; the Fair Digital Asylum qualitative study on smartphone extraction in Dutch asylum procedures, which revealed how the digital transformation of migration and asylum infrastructures violates human rights, receiving wide media attention; and joint research with Utrecht University and Tilburg University on theorising and testing post-traumatic growth, rather than post-traumatic stress, among Syrian young adults resettling in the Netherlands.
He is also an active member of the COST Action DATAMIG.