Karen Liao is a human geographer with an interdisciplinary background and a research focus on migration and development in Asia. At PRIO, she is senior researcher under the MigrationRhythms project, leading the qualitative data collection in Hanoi and Manila.

She completed her PhD in Geography at the National University Singapore (NUS) in 2022. Her research focused on labour migration governance in the Philippines and the involuntary return and repatriation of migrant workers. She was also Research Associate at the Scalabrini Migration Center, where she worked on projects related to: temporary migration in the Europe-Philippines corridor; youth, employment and migration; Filipino professional and skilled migrants; migrant and multicultural children in Asia.