Dr Natalia Paszkiewicz

Dr Natalia Paszkiewicz is currently working as a Research Fellow on ‘Making Aid Work for Displaced Women’ project at the University of Birmingham. In September 2025 she completed training on Writing Expert Witness Reports run by the Refugee Law Initiative at the University of London. 

Natalia has over 20 years of experience working on the topic of forced migration in different capacities, including as a researcher on ‘Fair and consistent? Exploring court-base factors in asylum appeal decision making in UK Immigration and Asylum Tribunal hearing centres’ at the University of Exeter; practitioner in London-based NGO supporting young unaccompanied minors from the Horn of Africa; UNHCR Senior Liaison Officer to then European Asylum Support Office in Malta; and as a humanitarian worker in Eritrean refugee camps in Ethiopia. In her previous role based in Addis Ababa, she worked on a research and innovation project ‘Bridging religious studies, gender & development and public health to address domestic violence: A novel approach for Ethiopia, Eritrea and the UK’ at SOAS University of London. She returns to Ethiopia on a regular basis to carry out research there. 

Natalia completed her PhD in Social Policy at the University of Brighton, and her thesis explored the intersection between UK asylum policy and statutory social services responses to asylum seekers and refugees. For her postdoctoral research on the project entitled ‘Healthy Housing for the Displaced’ at the University of Bath, she conducted fieldwork in displacement settings in Jordan, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Bangladesh, Turkey, Nepal and Peru. 

Natalia has provided consultancy and research support on topics related to forced migration, specifically around issues of economic inclusion of refugees and livelihoods in the humanitarian sector. She has also published journalistic pieces discussing refugee protection and political violence, with a focus on the Horn of Africa and Eritrean forced migration.