Experts Database

I am a political scientist, working on the field of migration during the last 16 years. I currently work at the Greek Ombudsman, at the Department of Human rights as a Senior Investigator, investigating cases and complaints concerning the protection of asylum seekers', refugees' and migrants' rights. I hold two degrees and one master and I speak Greek, English, French and Spanish. I have worked voluntarily as the coordinator of the research team of the Jean Monnet, European Centre of Excellence Program "The European Migration Management in the Eastern Mediterranean: The EU, Turkey and Greece" and as a core user/instructor of the SONETOR project, «Training of Cultural Mediators utilising new Social Networking Software».

Pedro Ponte e Sousa is a PhD candidate in Global Studies at the Department of Political Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, New University of Lisbon (Portugal), since 2015. He is also researcher of the Portuguese Institute of International Relations (IPRI) since 2016.
In his PhD thesis he analyses the interactions between globalization, foreign policy, and global governance in Southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece), under the supervision of Nuno Severiano Teixeira (FCSH-UNL, IPRI).
He holds a MA in History, International Relations, and Cooperation by the Faculty of Arts of the University of Porto, obtained in 2015, with a thesis on political parties’ cleavages in contemporary Portuguese foreign policy. He also holds a BA in Languages and International Relations from the same institution, since 2013.
His main research interests include: foreign, security, and defense policy; Foreign Policy Analysis; diplomacy; (political) globalization; global governance; Southern Europe (Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Greece).
He has over ten published research articles and book chapters and delivered dozens of presentations on these topics in national and international conferences.
He is member of international scientific organizations as UACES (University Association for Contemporary European Studies) and IAPSS (International Association for Political Science Students).

I am a sociologist, I have a master's degree in International Migration from the Université de Poitiers (France) and the University of A Coruña (Spain) and I hold a PhD in Social and Behavioural Sciences from the University of A Coruña.
I am currently a member of ESOMI (Sociology Team of Societies in Movement) at the University of A Coruña where I work as a researcher in the Carewell Project (PCI2021-121924). From 2017 to 2021 I worked with a FPU fellowship at the Faculty of Sociology, where I carried out my thesis "Colombian women in Spain and Brazilian women in Portugal. An intersectional analysis of women's migrations in the transnational/poscolonial space", under the direction of Laura Oso Casas.
In my research I analyse the migratory trajectories of Latin American women in Spain and Portugal, addressing the link between the ethnosexualisation processes, the migration policy and the dynamics of the sexual labour and marriage markets of destination.
Intersectionality and post/(de)colonial and transnational perspectives constitute the prism from which I approach gender within international migrations. The border as a political subject, racism and the construction of otherness are transversal topics in my work.
I have participated in 6 research projects funded in competitive calls, at European, national and regional level. I have carried out 6 research stays in prestigious international centres, including the University of Leeds (UK), the Universidade de São Paulo (Brazil) and the Colegio de la Frontera Norte (Mexico), for a total of 11 months abroad. To date, I have been accepted two scientific articles in international impact journals on migration and gender, with ScopusQ1 and Scopus Q2 indexing, respectively.

Abu Saleh Mohammad Sowad is an FRQSC doctoral candidate in Social and Cultural Analysis at Concordia University, Montreal. His research focuses on the constructions of diasporic masculinities among Bangladeshi men in Canada. He is also working as a research professional in the Research Chair on Gambling at Concordia University, Montreal, where he leads the research team on gender and gambling. Previously, he obtained an MSc in Gender, Development and Globalisation at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), where his thesis focused on the aftereffect of migration on the deconstruction of masculinities among Bangladeshi immigrant men in the United Kingdom. He also has an MSS and a BSS degree in Women and Gender studies from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He has been working as a faculty member in the Department of Women and Gender Studies, University of Dhaka, since 2014 and is currently on study leave. He also has extensive experience workings as a consultant with various INGOs like ActionAid Bangladesh, NETZ Bangladesh, OXFAM and USAID/Bangladesh.

Ibrahim Soysüren is a researcher at the University of Neuchâtel in Switzerland. He studied law and has a Master’s degree in economics, both from the University of Marmara (Istanbul). He has been a lawyer at the Istanbul Bar Association since 2001. He also studied French and Sociology and obtained a Master's degree in Sociology from the University of Neuchâtel. Since 2010, he has been working at this University on several research projects. He was a visiting researcher at the University of Galatasaray (Istanbul) and the Population and Development Centre (CEPED), a joint research unit of the Descartes University (Paris) and the French Institute for Research on Development (Paris) and the Migrations and Society Research Unit (URMIS) of the University of Diderot (Paris)
He holds a PhD from the University of Neuchâtel. The title of his dissertation is “Sociological and legal analysis of the deportation of foreigners in France, Switzerland and Turkey: For a comparative sociology of the deportation of foreigners”. He has published three books: "The Deportation of Foreigners in France, Switzerland and Turkey. For a Comparative Sociology of the Deportation of Foreigners"
“The Deportation of Foreign Offenders: Abdelmalek Sayad’s sociology on the basis of the Swiss case” (in French) and, “Border and Deportation” (co-edited with Didem Danış) (in Turkish). He is also the author of several articles.

I am an Assistant Professor of Development and Education in Inclusive Societies at Utrecht University. I am studying interventions countering polarization in education, and educational cooperation initiatives between mosques, schools and youth care institutions sharing a student population in multiethnic neighbourhoods. In my work, I use qualitative methodology and adopt a multidisciplinary approach to studying issues of cultural diversity and learning. My research interests include integration and empowerment of migrant youth, ethnic and religious identity formation, multilingualism in children and sociology of education. I appreciate being approached for collaboration on these topics.

Previously for my Ph.D. research at the University of Amsterdam, I investigated the portrayal and practice (i.e. organization, learning goals, content, curriculum, and pedagogies) of mosque education in the Turkish Islamic communities in the Netherlands, with a special attention to the role played by this non-formal religious education in the integration of the Turkish-Dutch children.

I am a member of the American Educational Research Association, the Comparative and International Education Society, and the Netherlands Interuniversity School for Islamic Studies.

Helga Špadina is an Assistant Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law Osijek, Croatia. She specialized in international law, human rights law, migration law, labor and social law and anti-discrimination law. She has working experience with the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and UN refugee agencies in South-East Europe and Middle East. Her international assignments focused on international refugee law, human rights protection, anti-human trafficking, migration management and protection capacity building. She regularly provides expert reports and conducts analysis of legislation to UN agencies, international organizations and EU Expert Committees.

Mr Theo Sparreboom took up the position of Labour Migration Specialist in the ILO’s Decent Work Team for Eastern and Southern Africa based in Pretoria in March 2019. Prior to joining the team in Pretoria, Mr Sparreboom worked for the Labour Migration Branch, the Statistics Department and the Economic and Labour Market Analysis Department at ILO headquarters in Geneva since 2007; he also held various technical and leading positions in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia for both the ILO and private international agencies from 1995 to 2007.

Mr Sparreboom is the ILO lead author of a 10-country study on the economic impact of immigration in developing and emerging economies (including Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Rwanda and South Africa), which was published by the ILO and OECD in 2018. He holds a PhD in Economics from the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, and has published widely in official reports and peer reviewed journals on labour markets, migration, statistics, education and (youth) employment.