Experts Database

I am Associate Professor in Demography in the Department of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Milan. My work has involved a range of themes situated within population studies with a focus on migration and ageing. My main research interests are in the fields of migration from the perspective of both sending and receiving countries, ageing and active ageing, health, wellbeing, life course analysis, family studies.

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.