Helidah Ogude-Chambert is a Departmental Lecturer in Migration and Development at the Oxford Department of International Development. She convenes courses on Migration and Development and Relational Formations of Race and Human (Im)mobilities.

Her interdisciplinary scholarship is situated within migration/mobilities studies, decolonial feminist thought, discourse and affect studies, and race-critical theories. She uses critical theories, mixed methods, and historical ways of thinking to understand how political elites manipulate emotions and public discourse in ways that normalize migrant precarity and justify state practices of cruelty and racialised expulsion.

She has over 15 years of professional experience in migration and development practice, working on or in conflict-affected environments addressing issues related to migration/displacement, armed conflict prevention, and socio-economic inclusion of refugees and marginalized groups. She has previously worked on these issues at the World Bank across various countries in Africa and East Asia as a Social Development Specialist, and for the Government of South Africa (The Presidency and Economic Ministry) as a Senior Policy Researcher.

Helidah holds a PhD in Public and Urban Policy (Migration Policy) from The New School in New York and an MS in Global Affairs (Conflict Prevention and International Development) from New York University. She was previously a Visiting Research Fellow at Oxford University’s Refugee Studies Centre. She is currently a non-resident Senior Fellow at New York University’s Centre for Global Affairs (2023/24).