Daria Valova-Lynch (she/they) currently holds the role of Migration Network Coordinator at the Migration Museum – Britain’s missing museum. Daria programmes knowledge-sharing events aimed at bringing together heritage practitioners, researchers, educators, and those with lived migration and refugee experiences to increase focus on migration and intersecting themes across Britain’s museum and heritage sector. The child of migrants from the Soviet Union to the United States, and a migrant to Britain herself, Daria is driven in her work to find solutions to issues of inclusion, representation, and accessibility through community-oriented approaches. Over the past decade, Daria has collaborated with migrant and refugee communities on creative and academic projects in the United States, Austria, Germany, Azerbaijan, India, and now the United Kingdom.
In addition to her role at the Migration Museum, Daria is completing a PhD in History and Heritage Studies at the University of York, funded by AHRC. Her doctoral project, Redefining ‘Yorkness’: Provincialising Britain’s Migrant and Refugee Heritage through Community-Based Participatory Research in York, England, is an ethnographic approach conducted with the York Civic Trust, aimed at decolonising the city’s heritage and heritage industry. Daria holds a MSt in Modern History from the University of Oxford (University College, Swire Fellow 2019-2020).
