Philippa Duell-Piening is a MSCA-PREPARED Postdoctoral Fellow at the Centre for Disability Law and Policy, University of Galway. Philippa’s project, Technology and Disability Rights, explores the impact of artificial intelligence and other advanced digital technologies on the autonomy of people with disability. This project is interested in how these technologies may enhance or undermine the autonomy of people with disability. Philippa uses an emancipatory legal case method to explore and document the impacts in three contexts: (supported) decision-making, migration, and an additional context to be identified in partnership with an advisory group. Outputs from the project include academic papers, policy briefs, practice and advocacy tools for a range of stakeholders.

Philippa is a socio-legal researcher who completed her PhD in 2023 at Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne. Philippa’s PhD explores Article 31 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, about statistics and data collection. This research, published in the monograph Refugee Displacement, Disability and Human Rights: The Production, Processing and Power of Data (Routledge, 2025), assesses how Article 31 is being operationalised in refugee contexts and critically examines the benefits and risks of disability data production and processing.

Before transitioning to academia, Philippa coordinated the Victorian Refugee Health Network, where she led initiatives in health sector development and government engagement to reduce health inequalities and improve access to healthcare services for people who are refugees. Earlier in her career, Philippa worked as an occupational therapist and case manager in mental health services in Australia and the UK. Philippa has also worked in forced migration contexts, including Timor-Leste in 2002 and the Thai-Burma (Myanmar) border in 2012.

In addition to a PhD, Philippa holds a Master’s in Community and International Development, and a Bachelor of Occupational Therapy. Drawing on her interdisciplinary expertise across human rights law, community development, and health, Philippa develops innovative socio-legal research methods that challenge traditional power dynamics in research, working collaboratively with communities to better understand the drivers of marginalisation and the levers for change.