Rong Bao

Rong Bao is a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the School of Law, University of Limerick, where she works with Professor Susan Leahy on the COALESCE-funded project Lived Realities: Victim-Survivors' Experiences of Irish Sexual Offence Trials. She joined the University of Limerick in January 2026.

Prior to this, Rong was a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the Maynooth University Social Sciences Institute (MUSSI), where she led the QSA*Net project, funded by the National Open Research Forum, promoting open research practices in qualitative social science through international network coordination and training resource development.

She holds a PhD in Social Work and Social Policy from Trinity College Dublin, where she was a recipient of the Trinity College Postgraduate Research Studentship, an MA in Education and International Development from the Institute of Education, University College London, and a BA in International Journalism and Communication from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Her doctoral research examined the lived experiences of young rural migrant mothers in Beijing, exploring how these women navigate multiple identities and structural barriers while developing mothering practices in urban contexts.

Rong's research spans migration studies, gender, and social inequality, with a particular focus on the experiences of marginalised and vulnerable populations. Her doctoral work examined rural-to-urban migration in China, exploring how migrant women exercise agency in navigating intersecting inequalities of gender, rural origin, and socioeconomic status. She also has a research interest in return migration and its implications for migrant families. Her current work turns to the Irish legal context, focusing on victim-survivors' experiences of sexual offence trials. Methodologically, Rong specialises in qualitative approaches, including narrative inquiry, grounded theory, and cross-cultural research methods, and is committed to open and rigorous qualitative research practices.