​Karen Liao is a geographer with an interdisciplinary background, and a specialization in migration within Asia. She received her PhD in Geography from the Department of Geography at the National University Singapore (NUS) in 2022. Her PhD research focused on labour migration and repatriation, particularly in the case of Filipino migrant workers. 

Karen's research interests include international migration in Asia, labour migration, and migrants in cities. She has published in Geoforum (2019), 'Mobile practices and the production of professionals on the move: Filipino highly skilled migrants in Singapore' and in Asian Population Studies (2020) 'Operation 'Bring Them Home': Learning from the large-scale repatriation of overseas Filipino workers in times of crisis.'  

She has previously worked with the Scalabrini Migration Center in Manila, a research organization established in 1987, also running the peer-reviewed journal the Asian and Pacific Migration Journal. Karen thus has extensive knowledge of Filipino migration dynamics. 

Within the MigrationRhythms project team, Karen will be focusing on the project's qualitative family history interviews component, together with project leader Marta B. Erdal, where Karen is taking the lead on data collection in Hanoi and Manila.