Experts Database

Joana Topa is a Psychologist with a PhD degree in Social Psychology from the University of Minho, Portugal. She is currently an Auxiliar Professor at the University of Maia and an integrated researcher at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Gender Studies (CIEG) that belongs to the Higher Institute of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Lisbon, Portugal. She is also a collaborator researcher at the Psychology Centre of the University of Porto, integrated into the research field "Culture, Normativity and Diversity". Specialist in Social, Educational and Community Psychology by the Portuguese Psychologists Association and specialist in Gender Equality, Gender Violence and Migration, she is part of the list of specialists of the Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality (CIG). She is a certified trainer for the Scientific Pedagogical Council for Continuing Education. Author of a book, several book chapters, and articles in national and international scientific journals, her main areas of research are focused on gender, migrations, health, gender violence, intersectionality and social inequalities. More recently she has also been focused on topics such as etnicities, racism and citizenship. Simultaneously, she participated in diverse international and national conferences and integrated diverse scientific committees and events organization. She has actively participated in several funded research projects, both academic and social (FCT; EEA GRANTS/FSE/CIG; Rights, Equality & Citizenship Programme of the European Union, European Cooperation in Science and Technology). In this moment she participates in the transdisciplinary network "Women on the Move" (CA19112), financed within the framework of the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST). Along these years she also took part in different networks, namely IMISCOE, GENDER & COVID-19 and Immigration, Crime and Citizenship of the European Society of Criminology. Feminist activist, she cooperates with several portuguese NGOs for gender equality and human rights.

Anna Triandafyllidou holds the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Migration and Integration at Ryerson University where she is setting up a new programme of excellence in migration research focusing on Canada and the world. Anna has previously held a Robert Schuman Chair at the European University Institute, in Florence, Italy. Her research focuses on migration, cultural diversity, on both policy and identity issues with a strong interest in communication, gender and qualitative methods. More information on her work can be found at www.annatriandafyllidou.com

A Research Associate at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, where he was awarded a PhD in Development Studies; a Senior Research and Policy Analyst at the UK/Horn of Africa-based PENHA; and a Non-Resident Fellow of the African Studies Centre Leiden. With an MA in Public Policy and Management from the University of Potsdam, Germany, his research has focused on the intersection of green economy and climate change, migration/forced internal displacement, conflict, pastoralism, social security, policy analysis, natural resource governance, risk and the dynamics of institutions in development. Tsegay has rich UN/EU/USAID consultancy experience in East Africa.

Ecological anthropologist with 30 years experience in Europe and Asia, working across NGOs, universities, and government. Major projects on Indigenous knowledge and medicine, Buddhist migrant landscapes, and disabled-led research.

Merve is a doctoral student in Sociology at School of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences where she is a part of the research team Work, Family and Intimate Relations. She is also a part of the Newbreed doctoral program (a programme co-funded by the European Comission through the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions and Co-funding of Regional, National and International Programmes) within the thematic area of Ageing from a Societal Perspective. She started her PhD at Örebro University in August 2018. Her project focuses on the experiences of older migrant women in Sweden.

She is currently working on the second book on Migration and Islam in Russia. She edited a book with a colleague from Lund University titled: “ Labour, Mobility and Informal practices in Russia: Power, Institutions and Mobile Actors in Transnational Space” published in 2021 by Routledge. She has been writing on the topics of migration, entrepreneurship, informal economies, gender, border studies, identity and inter-ethnic relations among many other topics which she published in such journals as Inner Asia, Communist and post-Communist studies, Sociology of Islam, Central Asian Affairs, Central Asian Survey, Anthropology of Middle East among other journals. Her book based on her PhD thesis is out with Routledge in 2016 under the title `Migration and Identity: the Uzbek Experience`.

Domiziana is a DPhil Student in Migration Studies, Clarendon Scholar, and Gates Alumna investigating how families shape and are shaped by onward migration. Domiziana’s doctoral research focuses on the experiences of the families of onward Colombian migrants who moved from Spain to London.

Ovgu Ulgen is a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Montreal. In her dissertation, which has been funded by FRQSC (Québec research funding) and IRTG Diversity, she sought to understand immigrant belonging at the intersection of language and religion. She examined how societal particularities of Montréal and Toronto embedded in the processes of negotiating the difference and created a complex relation between language and religion. She explored how the lived experiences of immigrants differed from one another and what it said about interculturalism and multiculturalism in Canada. She further looked at how relations between immigrants and the majority groups and inter and intra-ethnic relations formed and transformed in these processes. Her analysis of the relation between language and religion made it possible to make sense of the continuing salience of religion in the “post-secular” age in Canada, specifically, how cultural religion emerged as an important determinant of immigrant boundary making in the communities she interviewed, especially in Québec. She holds an MA degree in Sociology from the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris. In her M.A. research, which was awarded a scholarship, she focused on forced migration, collective memory, and urban politics in a neighborhood of Istanbul, Turkey.

Postdoctoral Fellow at Tallinn University (Estonia) and the Autonomous University of Madrid (Spain). Visiting Scholar at the Universidad Casa Grande (Ecuador). Dual Ph.D. in Humanities (Leiden University, the Netherlands) and in Political Science (Universidad Diego Portales, Chile). Chair of the IMISCOE's Election Committee. Co-Convenor of the Standing Committee of Migration, Citizenship, and Political Participation.