Bina D’Costa is a Professor of the Department of International Relations at the Coral Bell School, the Australian National University (ANU) and an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow. She is also a UN Special Procedures Mandate Holder. 

She has worked on the Thai-Burma border in Mae La, Umpiem Mai, and Nu Po refugee camps, and led human security training for human rights defenders from Myanmar-Burma since 2007.  In various capacities, she has also worked for over two decades with the Rohingya stateless communities in Naya Para, Kutupalong, and other semi-permanent camps in Bangladesh. During her field research in Myanmar, she has also worked with human rights activists, particularly those focussing on women’s rights and forced displacement. As a Senior Migration and Displacement Specialist with UNICEF, she designed and led its research program at the Office of Research. As a frontline researcher and humanitarian practitioner, she has contributed to Europe, East Africa and Horn of Africa refugee emergencies, and served in the first UN Rohingya Emergency Response Mission in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh in 2017.  

Bina is a member of the International Chittagong Hill Tracts Commission, a human rights advocacy body for Indigenous communities in the CHT, Bangladesh.