Dhakshayini Sooriyakumaran is Co-Director of The Migration Project, which focuses on holding listed corporations to account for their involvement in abusive border policing regimes, particularly technology-enabled surveillance. They are a member of the Expert Group on Race, Tech and Borders, facilitated by the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism.

Dhakshayini’s proposed project as a PhD student explores the regulatory agenda and actors of digital identification systems in India and the UK.

Dhakshayini Sooriyakumaran is a former civil engineer who has founded and led several non-profit organisations and projects focused on communities of colour in Australia and the Pacific. Their career spans a broad range of racial justice issues, including migration (as the former Director of Human Rights and Racial Justice at the ACCR), climate change (with the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction in Fiji), and young people’s access to education and employment (as the founder of YLab and at RMIT). She is a Board Director of Democracy in Colour.

Dhakshayini has degrees in Arts and Engineering (Civil) from the University of Melbourne.

Research interests:

• Surveillance Studies
• Public Policy Design
• Human Rights Regulation
• Science and Technology Studies
• Racial Formations
• Gender and Sexuality
• Refugee Law