Daniela Heil

Associate Professor Daniela Heil is an academic in the School of Humanities, Creative Industries and Social Sciences at the University of Newcastle, specializing in Sociology and Anthropology. Her work bridges social and medical anthropology with a focus on Indigenous health and well-being in Australia and gestational surrogacy practices between Germany and Ukraine.

Dr Heil's research explores cultural safety in healthcare, kinship structures among Aboriginal communities, and bioethical challenges in transnational surrogacy. Her publications span ethnographic analyses of Ngyiampaa Aboriginal Australians, critiques of mainstream health policy, and global perspectives on assisted reproductive technologies.

She has received travel grants for conferences like the American Anthropological Association meetings and the inaugural Online Teacher of the Year Award (2010). Her teaching includes courses on cultural health worlds, gender and social change, and international health perspectives. She supervises doctoral students in College of Human and Social Futures and collaborates with institutions such as the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS) and the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA).