Experts Database

I started my professional career at the age of 22 as a German teacher in Macedonia. After 20 years in teaching and training people, deep in my heart, I am firmly convinced that only passionate learners can make the world a better place.

I speak the most Slavic languages from the Balkan peninsula, German and English as second language and learn Italian. I have a different love relationship to each language I speak and I don't master anyone faultless, not even my mother tongue; o) Healthy mistake management is of great importance in the life long learning. Beside that, the world outside is merciless with multilingual people.

Further in Biography I studied Intercultural Communication, EU Policy and International Organizational Studies. Today I work as Cultural Sensitivity Trainer. But only in the role mother of two multilingual children, I got the idea to found the association, so I can actively support the intercultural coexistence in my new city Darmstadt. Above all, it was important for me to help multilingual children to master and enjoy daily routine with many languages.

Anna Knoll, leads ECDPM’s (www.ecdpm.org) portfolio on migration as Head of the Migration Programme. Anna’s interests and expertise lie in the field of migration in international cooperation between Africa and Europe.

With an academic background in Philosophy and Economics (BA, University of Bayreuth) and in International Political Economy (MSc, London School of Economics) her current research focuses on the interaction between migration, displacement and development processes, the external and development dimension of the EU’s migration and asylum policies, migration in European development policies as well as African narratives, policies and processes on migration.

Anna has carried out policy relevant research for ECDPM including field research in a number of African countries. She has experience in research design and implementation. Next to her role at ECDPM, she is currently pursuing a part-time PhD at the Maastricht School of Governance.

Prior to joining ECDPM, Anna has worked as German Fellow at the UN World Food Programme and as Stagiaire at the European Commission.

Originally from the south of Germany, I got to study political science in Mannheim, Barcelona, and Konstanz (2007-2012), and then to do a PhD in political science in Lund, Sweden (2012-2017). After two subsequent stints as a postdoctoral researcher in Bremen and Lausanne, I moved to Stavanger, Norway in early 2021 to start my current position as an associate professor (førsteamanuensis) of political science.

I am a post-​doctoral researcher working on forced migration and integration. Since fall 2015, I have been contributing to the Displaced Persons in Austria Survey (DiPAS), one of the first European studies on the human capital of refugees from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Refugee Health and Integration Survey (ReHIS) on refugees’ health access and mental health. I am affiliated with the Wittgenstein Center for Demography and Global Human Capital (IIASA, VID / ÖAW, WU) and teach at the University of Vienna and the University of Applied Sciences for Management & Communication. Besides my academic work, I regularly publish in the Austrian weekly FALTER and serve on the board of the Schumpeter Society Vienna.

My most current research project, the Women’s Integration Survey (WIN): Inclusion, Participation and Enablement of Refugee Women in Austria (2019-​2021), explored gendered pathways of social, economic and cultural integration.

My research has focused on different migration phenomena, including highly skilled, intra-European migration, free movement policies, Iraqi asylum seekers in Finland, migration decision-making and the role of imagination and mental time travel in the migration process, as well as tourism and mobility. At the moment I study the situation of Nordic migrants living in London during the Brexit process. In addition, I am an expert in research finance and project planning.