Experts Database

Laurea Triennale at the University of Bologna, Italy, in International Relations (Erasmus Exchange Programme at Humboldt Universitaet, Berlin and Overseas Exchange Programme at the University of California, Berkeley). MSc in Development Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London). Ph.D. candidate in Migration Studies at the University Of Sussex, School of Global Studies, Geography Department. Work experience in film festival organization and community project management (Human Rights Nights Film Festival and Mercatino Verde del Mondo, Bologna; African Bamba, Dakar, Thiaroye, Senegal; Film Africa, London).

I'm a Social Statistician with research interests in migration and refugee studies. I got a PhD in Applied statistics at the University of Palermo, where I'm currently a full professor. I'm also the PI of the research project AVRAI (Assessing the Vulnerability of Refugees and Asylum-seekers in Italy), a joint project (started in October 2023) with researchers from the Italian universities of Milan Bicocca, Bologna and Calabria.

Luca Merotta is Project Manager at Fondazione ISMU. He monitors and conducts research on EU migration and integration policies. He is also the coordinator of ISMU's “Europe, Africa and migration” programme on migration and development. He has implemented several EU-funded projects on knowledge governance, irregular/legal migration and migrant entrepreneurship. Luca holds a B.A. in Linguistic Science and International Relations from the Catholic University of Milan, a M.A. in European Studies from Leiden University and a M.A. in Transnational Politics from the University of Paris 8 – Vincennes-Saint-Denis. Previously he worked for the European Commission, the European network of children’s right organisations Eurochild and the French Development Agency.

I am an anthropologist affiliated to the Centre for Ethnic and Migration Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Liege, where I am working as Lecturer assistant and post-doctoral researcher. I obtained a PhD degree in Anthropology of contemporaneity – Ethnography of diversities and of cultural convergences (University of Milan-Bicocca, Italy) and in Political and Social Sciences (University of Liege, Belgium, joint doctoral supervision) with a thesis on food as means to define subjectivity in context of migration. My present research interests include the discrimination of Muslims and the public opinion on migrants, with a focus on asylum seekers, refugees and undocumented migrants. I am currently teaching the following Master courses: Anthropology of the contemporary world; Refugee and forced migration studies; Urban cultures and post-colonial minorities; Socio-anthropological approach to interculturality. The list of my publications and communications is available here:: https://orbi.uliege.be/simple-search?query=mescoli

Marietta Messmer is Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Groningen (The Netherlands). Her publications focus on the political and cultural relations between the U.S. and Latin America, Mexican and Central American migration to the U.S., violence in the U.S.-Mexican borderlands, as well as theoretical debates on human rights, citizenship, integration, and minority rights. She is managing editor of the peer-reviewed book series Interamericana, devoted to publications on the literatures, cultures, and societies of North, Central and South America (Peter Lang Verlag) and serves as Vice President of the International American Studies Association (IASA) (since September 2019). Her book publications include several co-edited collections on inter-American political, social, and cultural relations, including, most recently, The International Turn in American Studies (2015, with Armin Paul Frank) and America: Justice, Conflict, War (2016, with Amanda Gilroy).

Her current research project examines the U.S.’s and the European Union’s ways of outsourcing and privatizing immigration control measures and the social, economic, legal, and ethical consequences this has for migrants and refugees as well as for transit countries like Mexico, Libya, and Turkey. Her central argument is that this extraterritorialization of (legal and political) borders facilitates the circumvention of basic human rights obligations and redefines the boundaries of state control as it simultaneously expands and disperses state power by increasing the government’s legal reach over vulnerable non-citizen populations even beyond national borders while at the same time decreasing the government’s direct liability and accountability.

Moreover, Messmer is interested in the ways in which the current U.S. immigration and refugee regime violates both U.S. national legal standards as well as international human rights obligations towards under-age migrants and refugees. Child migration raises many social, legal, and political questions that differ fundamentally from those raised by adult migrants and throws into striking relief the contradictions inherent in the U.S.’s immigration and refugee regime, which is primarily geared at adults, as well as the contradictory nature of family-related immigration policies that seemingly privilege family reunification while at the same time tearing apart mixed-status families or non-immediate relatives.

PhD Lecturer at the University of Oradea, Romania,
Vice-president of Collegium Varadinum,
WP6 Group Expert EU Green Project

Edina Lilla Mészáros is a PhD Lecturer at the Faculty of History, International Relations, Political Science and Communication Sciences, at the University of Oradea, Romania. She is an expert in international relations and security studies. During her doctoral training, she received a scholarship of excellence funded by the European Union (POSDRU / 159 / 1.5 / S / 132400). As a guest professor, she had the opportunity to teach at prestigious European universities, such as the University of Aarhus in Denmark, the University of the Azores (Portugal), the Lajos Kossuth University in Debrecen (Hungary), the Moldovan Academy of Economics (Republic of Moldova), the Matej Bel University in Banska Bytrica (Slovakia), the Baltic International Academy, (Latvia), the University of Wroclaw (Poland) and the SMK University of Applied Sciences (Lithuania). She participated at several high-level international conferences, such as the annual conference organized by UACES (European Association of Contemporary Studies) (2018, Bath; 2020 Virtual Conference, Belfast; 2021 Liverpool, 2022 Lille), and her proposal was accepted for the 2021 Migration Conference in London and the 2021 World Congress of Political Science, Lisbon, Portugal organized by the International Association for Political Science (IPSA). She has published more than 40 articles in several domestic and international journals, including Web of Science, Scopus, Doaj, Erih +. She is the secretary of the Eurolimes Journal published by the Institute of Euroregional Studies under the auspices of the University of Oradea, Department of International Relations and European Studies. She is a member of the editorial board of the Review of European Affairs journal published by PECSA Poland and of the Criminal Geographical Journal of the Hungarian National University of Public Service. She is a reviewer at the Problems of Post-Communism Journal, member and expert at IMISCOE (International Migration Research Network), member of UACES (University Association for Contemporary European Studies), of IPSA (International Political Science Association) and ISER (Association for Institute of Euroregional Studies). She is the vice-president of Collegium Varadinum, a local non-governmental organization. She was the manager of a local project called (A învăța mai ușor, mai eficient-Learning easier and more efficient) financed by the Oradea City Hall 129.397/20,03,2008.
She was a Project Assistant in the Jean Monnet Multilateral Research Group entitled Initiative and Constraint in the Mapping of European Evolving Borders, Jean Monnet Programme, DG EAC 41/09, 2011-2013 http://borders.cvce.eu and in the project called Boosting Innovation through capacity building and networking of Science centers in the SEE Science Region, South-East Europe Transnational Cooperation Programme, SEE/B/0048/1.3/X, March 2013-April 2014, https://seescience.eu/
She was a project Assistant in Jean Monnet Network project entitled ENACTED (European Union and its neighbourhood. Network for enhancing EU’s actorness in the eastern borderlands), 2017-2021.
She is currently WP6 Expert in the EU Green Project, Alliance of European Universities, https://www.eugreenalliance.eu/bitacora/

Dr Gabriela Mezzanotti is Associate Professor in Social Sciences at the University of South-Eastern Norway and a Lawyer. She is the co-leader of USN’s research group “Human Rights and Diversities”. She holds a PhD in Social Sciences and a MA degree in International Law. She chaired the UNHCR Sergio Vieira de Mello Chair at Unisinos University (Brazil) for 8 years. Her research addresses critical discourse studies, critical decolonial and intersectional approaches to rights and policies related to power, human rights and migration. She is a human rights activist and has a wide range of policy and practice-based experiences within migration and minorities contexts with intergovernmental bodies and NGOs in Latin America. She is also the former coordinator of the International Relations BA Program and the Executive Graduate Program in International Relations and Diplomacy at Unisinos University in Brazil. She is a former representative member of COMIRAT (Rio Grande do Sul State Committee for Migrants, Refugees, Stateless Persons, and Human Trafficking Survivors) and COMIRAT/POA (The city of Porto Alegre Committee for Migrants, Refugees, Stateless Persons, and Human Trafficking Survivors). She is a former member of NEABI (Afro descendants and Indigenous studies centre at Unisinos University) and a former member of its United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent Internal Commission. Mezzanotti is a former Associate Editor for the Human Rights Education Review (HRER/USN). She was a visiting faculty at the Federal Judges Superior School, Brazil, and, more recently, at the Institute of Regional Studies, Visiting Professors Programme at the Jagiellonian University, Kraków, Poland, and at the Visiting Professors Program at the PhD Program in Society, Culture, and Borders, State University of West Parana, Brazil. Her most recent publications address critical and decolonial views on the racialization of Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples on the move, the criminalization of humanitarian aid, migrant detention, refugee protection in Latin America and urban violence in Brazil.