Experts Database

Professor of migration history

Alessandra Venturini is full professor at the University of Turin, holder of the Jean Monnet Chair in European Migration Studies www.europeanmigrationstudiesjmc.unito.it and president of the Diploma in Migration Studies at the University of Turin and Associate and former Deputy director of the Migration Policy Center at the EUI, Florence, co-chair of the G20 Migration section, board member of the Collegio Caro Alberto, IZA Fellow. She extensively worked on the economic approach to migration: the migration choice, the effects in the destination and sending countries in particular in the Mediterranean one. She worked on the effectiveness of migration and integration policies. Recently her research focus also on Migrants consumption of cultural goods as driver on integration. She visited many Universities and research center and is expert for the EU Commission.

Dr. Marcia Vera Espinoza is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Global Health and Development, Queen Margaret University. She is also a researcher in CAMINAR (Comparative Analysis on International Migration and Displacement in the Americas). Her research and teaching seat at the intersection of development, political and social geography, with a focus on migration, forced displacement, and Latin America. Marcia is particularly interested in the study of migration and refugee dynamics, experiences, and governance in Latin America.

I am a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Anthropology Department at Aarhus University and in the Thomas Coram Research Unit, Social Research Institute at UCL, London. My current fellowship has received funding from the Independent Research Fund Denmark and the Marie Curie EC Horizon Programme (currently UKRI funded). I completed my PhD at the Department of Anthropology at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. My PhD ‘Coming of Age in Asylum’ is an ethnographic account of the young refugees who arrived in Denmark as unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors with a focus on those who were at the margins of the category, that is they were close to coming of age or their age was challenged. The thesis is concerned on how this group of young refugees created a sense of belonging through social relations amidst the uncertainties they faced during the ’refugee crisis’ of 2015-16. My current postdoctoral project explores how refugee mothers who endured separation from their families negotiate deservingness to the right to a family life following family reunification, by exploring their encounters with advocates and welfare workers in the context of the UK and Denmark. Andrea has taught in Australia (UNSW) and Denmark (University of Copenhagen) and presented her work at conferences in Italy, Iceland, Australia and the UK. Her work has been published in high-impact journals including Ethnos, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies and the Journal of Sociology.

Cecilia Vergnano obtained her Ph.D. in Advanced Studies in Social Anthropology at the Universitat de Barcelona in December 2015 with a thesis on housing access of transnational European migrants, ethnically labelled as Roma, in the city of Turin (Italy). She is currently affiliated to GRECS (Group
of Research into Social Exclusion and Control) at the University of Barcelona. Her
research interests are territorial stigmatization, forced (im)mobilities, housing policies and
processes of racialization.

Pinelopi Vergou is a political scientist (Panteion University, Greece). She holds an MA in Political Science and Sociology from the University of Athens. Her doctoral studies is in human geography from the University of Thessaly - Department of Planning and Regional Development (April 2016). She has been working as a director in the Department of immigration services in the Prefecture of Athens, Greece and she has been collaborated with UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Athens-Greece in a Training Course on the diffusion of the Refugee Low (2001). She is currently working as a Laboratory Teaching Staff in the Department of Economics in the University of Thessaly. Over the last years she has participated in many EU and Greek funded research projects related to immigration and social integration. She is frequently collaborating with the National Centre of Social Research in Greece. Her research interests are focused on social and spatial segregation, immigration policy, social reproduction, gender and diversity.

I am the coordinator of CESSMIR (Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees). CESSMIR is an interdisciplinary centre within Ghent University dedicated to the social study of migration and refugees. Three key elements are central to the work of CESSMIR: interdisciplinarity, societal impact and participation (as a research topic, in research methods and as a way of enhancing societal impact).
I have a master in Special Needs Education and a PhD in pedagogical sciences. My PhD research was about integration an belonging in a multi- and intergenerational perspective, and also critically examined the concept of integration. After that, I coordinated the research project 'Childmove', that focused on the impact of flight experiences on the psychosocial wellbeing of unaccompanied refugee minors.
My research interests include psychosocial wellbeing, integration, unaccompanied refugee minors and families on the move. Furthermore, I am interested in and working on societal impact and participation.

Pieter-Paul Verhaeghe is since October 2016 associated professor (docent) at the Department of Sociology of the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (Belgium).

Student of International Relations at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ), Brazil. Developed the scientific initiation entitled “The relationship between the universality of the SUS and high-risk Venezuelans’ pregnancy”, published in the journal Lugar Comum. During this research, I analyzed the motivations that lead Venezuelan high-risk pregnant leave their country and come to Brazil, something that includes the use of the existing public health system (SUS) in this country. I was able to collect data showing the number of pregnant women who migrated to Brazil, to the state of Roraima, between 2016 and 2019, in addition to observing which public maternity hospitals they went to have the proper prenatal care and also the birth of their children. I was able to analyze the consequences of not guaranteeing a quality public health system in Venezuela, which caused malnutrition to women, lack of basic supplies in hospitals and, also, lack of prenatal care. Thus, when they arrived in Brazil, most of them presented greater health risks - demanding even more from the Brazilian public health system, which, in 2016, collapsed in the state of Roraima.