Leah
Williams Veazey

Leah Williams Veazey is ARC DECRA Research Fellow in the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies in the School of Social and Political Sciences at The University of Sydney. She is the author of the award-winning book Migrant Mothers in the Digital Age (2021, Routledge) and has published widely in the areas of migration, parenthood, digital cultures, and experiences of health and healthcare. Her research uses qualitative methods, most commonly in-depth interviews, to explore contemporary social experiences, with a focus on the intersections of health, mobility and relational sociology. Leah's current research, funded by an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) entitled "Future-proofing Australia's Care Economy", explores the intersections of work, migration and care in the lives of healthcare workers and healthcare students. Specifically, the project explores how healthcare workers’ family relationships and informal care responsibilities shape their migration decisions, experiences in the workplace and plans for the future. Leah co-convenes The Australian Sociological Association’s Migration, Ethnicity and Multiculturalism Thematic Group, and co-leads the Migration, Im/mobility and Belonging Research Theme at the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies. She is Associate Editor at the Australian Journal of Social Issues, and an Associate Investigator at the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. Leah completed her PhD in Sociology at the University of Sydney, a qualitative study of migrant mothers and their online communities in Australia, supervised by Associate Professor Catriona Elder and Professor Susan Goodwin. Since then, she has taught across the Discipline of Sociology & Criminology and the School for Public Health, and has worked on a number of research projects, including an ARC-funded project on the history of sociology, led by Associate Professor Fran Collyer, and an NHRMC-funded project on the experiences of healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, led by Professors Lyn Gilbert and Alex Broom. Her recent projects include experiences of contemporary cancer care, the social life of death, and the social dimensions of antimicrobial resistance.