Gianna Eckert is a PhD student at the Law School and Research Affiliate at the Refugee Law Initiative with research interests across migration and human rights law, legal cultures and comparative law.

Her PhD research explores the laws regulating forced removals in the UK and Germany through the lens of legal cultures. Methodologically, her project relies on qualitative methods, combining empirical analysis of caselaw with enthographic and interview data to illustrate the 'law in action'. Her project is supervised by Prof. Diego Acosta Arcarazo and Dr Kathryn Allinson.

Previously, Gianna worked as a research assistant at the University College London on an ESRC-funded project examining SOGI asylum adjudication and the role of support organisations in this context. She was awarded the runner-up prize of the Border Criminologies Master’s dissertation competition for her thesis completed for the MSc in Global Migration at the University College London. Her thesis explored the system of statutory toleration in Germany through a novel analytical lens, combining political philosophy and Foucauldian concepts of biopolitical governmentality.