Ursula de Almeida has experience working in both Australia and Timor-Leste. Ursula worked in various organisations in the humanitarian, peacebuilding and development sector in Timor-Leste for 10 years, including during the 2006 IDP crisis. In addition, she worked in the refugee and people seeking asylum sector for five years in Australia. Most recently, Ursula worked with the Australian Red Cross in short-term humanitarian assistance programs during the 2021 COVD restrictions in Victoria and the 2022 floods affecting NSW and Queensland. Before joining CHL, Ursula was a part-time research assistant on an ARC-funded research project on the history and remembrance of East Timorese migration to Australia with Curtin University.
Ursula has a Master of Philosophy in Peace Studies from the University of New England, completing a thesis collecting stories about the Timorese diaspora and their contributions to peacebuilding and development in Timor-Leste, using an indigenous and autoethnographic methodology.