Derya Ozkul

Derya Ozkul 

Research Associate  

Affiliation: Refugee Studies Centre
Expert in: Migration governance and policy, new technologies, digitalisation​
Geographic focus: Europe and MENA regions

Dr Derya Ozkul is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Warwick and a Research Associate at the Refugee Studies Centre at the University of Oxford. She is currently the Principal Investigator of the ‘Digitising Identity’ project, where she researches the digitalisation of the immigration system in the UK. Additionally, she is a Co-Investigator on the ‘Algorithmic Fairness for Asylum Seekers and Refugees' (AFAR) project. As part of this project, Dr Ozkul has authored a comprehensive research report titled ‘Automating Immigration and Asylum’ where she investigated the uses of new technologies in immigration and asylum systems. At Oxford, Dr Ozkul was the Principal Investigator of the ‘The Governance of AI-based Technologies in the Management of Migration’ project, funded by the John Fell Fund. In this project, she investigated the practices around biometrics and data ownership in humanitarian work. Her scholarly work includes numerous journal articles and book chapters that focus on the politics of migration and displacement, as well as the processes and impact of digitalisation within these areas. Her publications can be found on Google Scholar. Furthermore, Dr Ozkul is the Co-Director of the Social Theory Centre at the University of Warwick and an Executive Committee Member of the International Association for the Study of Forced Migration (IASFM).