Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh is an internationally renowned and award-winning scholar of migration and refugee studies whose work examines displacement, humanitarianism, and the politics of knowledge, ethics, narrative and representation. Across her research and public engagement, she explores how displacement is experienced and responded to, paying particular attention to how stories about displacement are produced, whose voices and forms of knowledge are recognised, and how narrative and representation shape public understanding and humanitarian action.

Across more than two decades of research, Elena’s field-defining work has challenged dominant assumptions about refugees and humanitarian response while foregrounding relational, Southern and refugee-centred perspectives on displacement, care, responsibility and knowledge. Her scholarship has been funded by the European Research Council. the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council, Leverhulme Trust, British Council, Henry Luce Foundation and the UNHCR.

With degrees from the University of Cambridge, the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), UNSW and the University of Oxford (where she was awarded her DPhil), Elena is Professor of Migration and Refugee Studies at UCL and Founding Director of the Refuge in a Moving World research network. From 2015 to 2024, she served as Co-Director of UCL's Migration Research Unit, building interdisciplinary research communities and collaborations across migration and refugee studies.

Her international work combines research, education and strategic collaboration. She regularly collaborates with colleagues across North America, Europe and the Middle East, including as External Convenor of Dartmouth College’s South-South Forum, as Senior Advisor and Non-Resident Fellow at the Centre for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies, Doha Institute for Graduate Studies (Qatar), and Distinguished Visiting Professor at Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut (Lebanon).

Elena is the Co-Founder and Editor-in-Chief of Migration and Society and has played a significant role in developing interdisciplinary fields of scholarship through editorial leadership and major collaborative publications. Her edited volumes include The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (2014), the Routledge Handbook of South-South Relations (2018), Refuge in a Moving World (2020), and The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Contemporary Migration (2027).

Elena’s vital research informs policy, humanitarian practice and institutional strategy. She regularly serves on national research and government advisory bodies, undertakes commissioned research and consultancy, and contributes to policy discussions with governments in Europe and North America, international organisations and humanitarian actors, including longstanding engagement with UNHCR.

Her awards and prizes include the Philip Leverhulme Prize and the Lisa Gilad Prize awarded by the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration. In recognition of her field-defining work, Elena has been elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS). She is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA).