Shaped by Migration, Driven by Purpose: Emilda Thavaratnam’s Journey from Sri Lanka to a PhD at OISE

On June 3, Emilda Thavaratnam will walk across the stage at the University of Toronto’s Convocation Hall to receive her Doctor of Philosophy from OISE’s Department of Leadership, Higher and Adult Education (LHAE). For Thavaratnam, the moment represents far more than the completion of a degree.

“Crossing the stage will be very emotional, because it's connected my own experiences of my migration, my parents, my experiences as a teacher, motherhood, and I couldn't have done this without the people who supported me,” she says. “I'm just really grateful, emotional.”

Born in Sri Lanka and a daughter of Sri Lankan Tamil immigrants, Thavaratnam’s journey to this moment began long before she entered a classroom at OISE. She came to Canada with her mother in 1990 at the age of five, after years of upheaval caused by the Sri Lankan Civil War.

“I remember there were certain moments where, I'd have to go into a bunker, or we'd stay in a church for 30 days, eating mostly beans,” she recalls.

Conflict, arrival, education, and community

As violence intensified in Jaffna – a city in the northern tip of Sri Lanka – Thavaratnam and her mother were forced to flee their home and relocate to Colombo – the country’s capital city – where they stayed with family for several years before immigrating to Canada. Like many Tamil families displaced by the conflict, her parents made difficult sacrifices in pursuit of safety and the hope of a brighter future.

Her father left shortly after she was born in 1985, first travelling to the United States and later to Canada to establish himself financially before bringing his wife and daughter to Toronto.

“We always kept in touch, the phone calls and letters. And he still, he always talks about those calls.”

Now a mother herself, Thavaratnam says she understands those sacrifices more deeply than ever. “I understand the emotional weight of that separation, so much more deeply,” she says. “I can't even imagine how difficult it was for him to be away from his young family at the time.”

When she and her mother finally arrived in Toronto, there was relief in escaping the unrest in Sri Lanka, but adapting to life in Canada came with its own set of challenges. They navigated unfamiliar systems, harsh winters and economic hardship while trying to build a new life from scratch.

“My mother told me there were many times where she got on the wrong bus,” Thavaratnam says. “The transition to Canadian life was very, very difficult, especially in the 90s.”

Her mother, once a math and science teacher in Sri Lanka, worked in a lampshade factory after immigrating to Canada while attending evening classes at Seneca College to retrain in early childhood education.

“This is really remarkable to me, because she started over again in her mid 40s,” Thavaratnam says. “She's always been the image of resourcefulness and resilience.”

Her father, who had been an English teacher in Sri Lanka, also struggled to re-enter the profession after arriving in Canada. Despite pursuing additional certifications and training opportunities, he encountered many of the barriers commonly experienced by internationally trained professionals trying to rebuild their careers in a new country.

Despite the challenges, education and community remained central in their home. Thavaratnam grew up watching her parents support people in their Tamil community by tutoring, mentoring and helping them prepare for their citizenship, shaping her understanding of teaching as something rooted in guidance and service to others.

Those experiences would later influence both her career and her doctoral research.

Thavaratnam’s journey to PhD
Before pursuing her PhD, Thavaratnam completed a Bachelor of Arts in English at the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC) and a master’s degree at OISE. 

She then went on to teach, first in secondary schools and later in the college sector at Seneca, George Brown and Centennial College, where she has taught communications for more than a decade, including many English as a Second Language (ESL) courses.

Working closely with newcomer and multilingual students in her classes often reminds Thavaratnam of her own family’s early experiences of adapting to life in Canada, particularly the challenges her mother faced navigating language, education and employment systems.

Thavaratnam began her PhD in 2015 while working full time, balancing two maternity leaves, parenting two young children and navigating the COVID-19 pandemic. Completing the degree required years of persistence as she juggled academic work, teaching and family responsibilities.

She credits her husband, Akil, and her family for helping her persevere as she prepares to cross the Convocation Hall stage this June.

“I think of my parents, first, their courage and their sacrifice really shaped who I am,” she says. “They came to Canada looking for a brighter future, and so this moment belongs to them as much as it belongs to me.”

‘A doctoral project informed by community-based justice’
Her doctoral research focused on the experiences of international students in Ontario colleges, a topic inspired by her years of teaching in the college sector and witnessing students struggle with financial pressures, exhausting work schedules and academic demands.

“For years I saw international students having different struggles than my domestic students,” she says. “I would see students come to my class at 8:30 a.m. exhausted… and they would share with me, I just worked a 12-hour overnight shift at a factory.”

Through interviews with international students and frontline college staff, Thavaratnam examined how larger systems — including public funding cuts, housing pressures, immigration policy and institutional reliance on international tuition — shape student experiences.

At the heart of her work was a desire to bring international students’ voices into broader academic and public conversations and encourage a more compassionate understanding of their experiences in Canada.

“My research is not only a story of hardship, [but also] a story of resilience,” she says. “International students have such resilience. They have agency.”

Jamie Magnusson, Associate Professor in Adult Education and Community Development at OISE and Thavaratnam’s doctoral supervisor, says her commitment to social justice and community-centred scholarship stood out from the beginning.

“I was immediately impressed by her deep commitment in developing a doctoral project informed by community-based justice,” Magnusson says.

“Emilda brought this energy of being socially accountable to every class discussion, thesis group meetings, academic presentations and her publications,” she says. “In the senior years of her program she was a committed and compassionate mentor to more junior graduate students.”

Magnusson also recalls watching Thavaratnam balance doctoral work and motherhood.

“I remember Emilda delivering a paper at a national academic conference,” Magnusson says. “A young mother at the time, she not only had to write the paper but arrange for childcare, travel across the country, and do daily check-ins on her family.”

For Thavaratnam, OISE became a place where her personal experiences and academic interests could meaningfully intersect.

“My experience with OISE was very transformative,” she says. “It helped me grow as a researcher, but also as an educator.”

She says she found a supportive environment where she could bring forward her lived experiences. “I shared aspects of my family's journey here, and it was received with such kindness, grace, and support,” she says.

As convocation approaches, Thavaratnam is already thinking about the future. She hopes to continue sharing her research publicly, expand her scholarship on international education policy and one day teach at OISE.

“I would really love to continue this research, especially in the light of the recent federal caps on international students,” she says.

She is also currently writing a collection of diasporic short stories inspired by migration experiences within the Tamil community.

For Thavaratnam, the upcoming convocation ceremony represents a powerful milestone shaped by migration, perseverance, family and community, and she hopes her journey will show her children that “that dreams are worth pursuing, even if the journey is difficult.”