Experts Database

Dr. Toni Cela is a cultural anthropologist whose research interests include: migration and education; anthropology of disaster and recovery; disaster health; Haitian youth identity formation; anthropology of education; and diaspora and development. She received her doctorate from Columbia University, is a former Fulbright Scholar and Spencer Foundation fellow.

Jocelyn O. Celero is currently Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Japan Studies Program at the Asian Center, University of the Philippines Diliman. She teaches courses on Japanese society, culture, politics and economy. She obtained her PhD in International Studies at Waseda University, Japan in 2016. She has published on migration and transnationality of Filipino migrants and Japanese-Filipinos. Since 2019, she has served as Research Fellow/Focal Person for UP-CIFAL Philippines.

Francesco is currently an FWO senior fellow at the Centre for Sociological Research (CeSO), KU Leuven, Belgium, with a project on the role of mixed couples’ associations in the public sphere (in Italy, France and Belgium).
He is a cultural sociologist with a specific interest in the intersection of family, migration and religion. His research is characterized by the use of qualitative methods, in particular of ‘life stories’ and ethnographic observation. His focus on mixed families and, in particular, on Christian-Muslim families, represents a key to examining the wider social changes related to family, Muslim migration and religious pluralism in Europe. In Italy he was also involved in research on second-generations of immigrants and the role of schools in the debate on citizenship.
Previously, from February 2018 until February 2020, he was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at Ku Leuven. With the project entitled “ReMix - Christian-Muslim families dealing with religious pluralism in everyday family life: Religious reconstruction in religiously mixed marriages”, he investigated the daily life of Christian-Muslim couples in Belgium and France.
Francesco has a PhD in Social Sciences (2013) and Bachelor’s (2005) and Master’s (2008) degrees in Political Science, International Relations and Human Rights from the University of Padua. In Padua, at the Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology (FISPPA), he worked as a researcher and taught a course on "The Imaginary of alterity" and “Diversity, Minorities and Cultural conflicts” from 2016 until 2018.
His publications includes a monograph in Italian (Guida Ed. 2016) and several articles in English published in Social Compass, Identities, Journal of Gender Studies, Journal of Cotemporary Religion, Annals of Tourism Research and Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.

As a graduate student in Governance of International Relations at Sciences Po Toulouse, in France, Sonia foresees to pursue a Ph.D. in migration and refugee studies. During a one-year exchange at Yeditepe University, Sonia has conducted research in Istanbul and Gaziantep as part of both her undergraduate thesis and course of Applied Research. Her latest work deals with the years following the 2016 EU-Turkey deal and the Syrian refugee response implemented by varying actors in Turkey. As a former Policy and Research Intern at the Istanbul Policy Center (IPC) in Spring 2019, she participated in the elaboration of quantitative analysis of Turkey’s economic trade with the Iraqi Kurdistan, Iraq and, Syria.

Dr. Svetlana Chachashvili-Bolotin is a Head of the Institute for Immigration and Social Integration and a senior lecturer at the Ruppin Academic Center in Israel. In early 2011, she founded the Research Department in the Education Division and served as its head in 2011-2015. Beginning from 2015 she has been a member of the professional committee of Israel Ministry of Education. Since 2021 she is an Associate Editor of Hagira (Migration in Hebrew) Journal. Her main areas of research include migration and inequality, migration and education, economic and social integration of immigrants. Dr. Chachashvili-Bolotin published more than 30 articles in international journals as well as professional and applied studies and reports. Her long-term goal is to strengthen connections between the academy and practice. She considers herself as an applied sociologic researcher-practitioner whose research is affected by practice and practice is informed by research.

I am a researcher whose work lies at the cross section of gender,
migration and diasporic studies from a postcolonial feminist perspective. I am Principle
Investigator of a five-year Irish Research Council project on migrant South Asian women’s
experience of accessing support services in Ireland. I am specifically interested in looking at
how ideas around gender, masculinities, and caste migrate transnationally and how it effects
migrant women of colour in Europe. I have actively sought to collaborate with civil society
partners outside academia, narrowly defined, in the co-production of knowledge and the
communication of research findings for societal impact My work has been published and
accepted for publication in leading international peer-reviewed publications including
International Feminist Journal of Politics, Economic and Political Weekly, Religion and
Gender, Routledge, and Cambridge University Press. Since finishing my PhD in 2019, I have
led three research projects worth more than €500,000 funded by the Irish Research Council,
and Ireland India Institute, and collaborated on international research projects with colleagues
at Goldsmiths, University of London, Tampere University, Lucerne University, ActionAid
Ireland, ActionAid Nepal. As a Postdoctoral Fellow in Dublin City University’s School of Law
and Government, I have created and taught modules on postcolonial politics, gender studies
and masculinity studies to DCU’s undergraduate and postgraduate students. In my former role
as an Editor, I have been in charge of the production of 13 top rated academic journals from
Sage Publications.