The Team

Katja Möhring

Katja Möhring is Full Professor and leads the Chair of Sociology, especially Family and Work at the Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg. She is also an external fellow and project leader at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research. Before, she was Assistant Professor for Sociology of the Welfare State and from 2018 to 2021 Interim Chair of Macrosociology at the University of Mannheim. She studied Social Sciences at the Humboldt University of Berlin and received her PhD from the University of Cologne in 2013. Afterwards, she was a postdoctoral fellow at the SOCIUM Research Center at the University of Bremen, and in 2017 a Visiting Scholar at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. One focus of Katja’s research is life course sociology. Here, she is especially interested in employment and family trajectories, and how these relate to well-being in old age and inequalities between genders and (non-)migrants. The second focus of her research is political sociology. She is particularly interested in attitudes toward social policy and toward diversity/anti-discrimination measures. In her research, she integrates micro- and macro-level perspectives using comparative and longitudinal data as well as mixed methods.

Lea Römisch

Lea Römisch is a doctoral candidate at the Chair of Sociology, in particular Family and Labour at the Otto Friedrich University of Bamberg. After studying sociology at the University of Bamberg, she worked as a research assistant in the field of poverty prevention and integration at the Social Welfare Office of the City of Nuremberg, focussing on two areas. One focused on the housing inequality of low-income households and in particular on the role of the energetic condition of houses for living conditions. The second focus was on addiction and addiction support, with an emphasis on close collaboration with support organisations. Since July 2023, she has been a doctoral student in the "MIG-AGE" project. In this project, she combines her research interests in the areas of migration and integration research, ageing and life course perspectives. Methodologically, the focus is on longitudinal research and mixed methods. Further research interests lie in the area of gender-specific inequalities and networks.

Başak Bilecen

Dr. Başak Bilecen is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Since 2023, she is the chair of the Dutch Association for Migration Research. In 2022, Dr. Bilecen was awarded the Karl Arnold Prize by the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences and Arts for her lifetime achievements in migration scholarship. In the 2017-2018 academic year, she worked at the Center for European Studies, Harvard University as a John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow funded by German Academic Exchange Services (DAAD). She is the author of International Student Mobility and Transnational Friendships (2014). Her work focuses on international migration, transnationality, social protection, social networks, and social inequalities which appeared in leading international journals including Social Networks, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Population, Space, and Place, and the Gerontologist.

Tuğçe Tezel

Tuğçe Tezel is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. Holding a master's degree in Applied Social Psychology from the same respected institution. Her specific focus is on delving into the aging experiences of migrants in Europe, with research interests covering migration, transnationality, place, and aging.

Froukje van der Woude

Froukje van der Woude completed her Bachelor's degree in Sociology at the University of Groningen in 2023 with honors distinction. Currently, she is attending the Research Master in Behavioral and Social Science. Her specific research interests lie in health and migration.

Ahmet İçduygu

Ahmet İçduygu is a professor at Koc University, Istanbul Turkey, in the Department of International Relations and the Department of Sociology. He is also the Director of the Migration Research Center at Koç University (MiReKoc). He holds a PhD in Demography from the Australian National University. He is an elected member of the Science Academy in Turkey. In addition to his own individual research projects, Prof. İçduygu has conducted various research projects for the international organizations such as IOM, UNHCR, EU, OECD, and ILO. His main research and teaching focus on migration studies, theories and practices of citizenship, international organizations, civil society, nationalism and ethnicity, and research methods.

Banu Liman

Banu Liman is completing her PhD in Sociology at Koç University, Graduate School of Social Sciences and Humanities. She also works as a researcher at the Migration Research Center at Koç University (MiReKoc). She completed her BA at Marmara University, Department of Political Science and International Relations. Her MA is in International Affairs from Carleton University, the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs. Her primary research interests are aging and ageism, gender and technology, family policies, demography, and social policy.


Karina Goulordava

Karina Goulordava is completing her PhD in Sociology at Koç University in Istanbul and is affiliated with the Migration Research Center at Koç University (MiReKoc). Her research interests include international migration, forced migration, migration and urbanization, and historical approaches to migration research, focusing on Turkey and MENA countries. She completed her Master’s in Urban Planning and Policy at the American University of Beirut and was a 2012-2013 Fulbright Grant Recipient for independent research at Utrecht University. She received her undergraduate degree in 2012 from the University of Pittsburgh. Additionally, she has worked as a practitioner and a researcher in the humanitarian and development sector with MENA and European-based organizations.


Mert Türkmen

Mert Türkmen is pursuing a PhD in Political Science and International Relations at Koç University. He completed his BS in Political Science and Public Administration Department at Middle East Technical University. He received an MS from the Governance of Migration and Diversity Program at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He completed his second MS in Political Science at Middle East Technical University with a thesis on the resistance of undocumented migrants against deportation from the outlook of the right to stay and radical civil disobedience. His major research interests are migration studies, social and political justice, contemporary political theory, and human rights theories.

Francesca Lagomarsino

Francesca Lagomarsino is Associate Professor in Sociology of Cultural Processes, SPS/08, at Disfor, University of Genoa, where she teaches Sociology of Education and Sociology of the Family.

Her research interests belong to two study areas. The first concerns transnational migration processes with a focus on female migration, transnational families and second generations and their inclusion in the educational system, female and family migration. Another area of research concerns gender roles within the couple, parental roles, the school-family relationship and inequalities in educational systems. She is one of the founding members of Disfor's Visual Sociology Lab. She also collaborates with Centro Studi Medì, Migrations in the Mediterranean.

She coordinates the editorial series “Migrations and Social Change” of the Genova University Press.

Simone Castellani

Simone Castellani is a “Maria Zambrano” postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Cadiz and associate researcher at CIES-Iscte carrying out the project Health Care in Mobility (HC-Mob), which focuses on the transnational health protection of Southern EU migrants in a re-nationalized Europe. He holds a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology (University of Seville, Spain) and in Migration and Intercultural Processes (University of Genoa, Italy). He was a visiting fellow at the INAH-Oaxaca (México), CONICET (Argentina), the University of Santa Caterina (Brazil), the University of Bielefeld and University of Freiburg (Germany), Wellesley College (US), FLACSO-Ecuador, and the University of Sussex (UK). His topics of research are related to the international migratory processes. Specifically, he has studied the Latino-American migration flows toward Europe, particularly the so-called second generation and the new Southern European migration flows toward Germany during the last economic recession.

During the latest years, he integrated several international projects, such as the UPWEB-NORFACE, which focuses on the practices of health bricolage in a context with high diversity. Actually, he is the P.I. of the international project “Moving forward by coming back” focuses on the nexus between return migration and remote work in the post-COVID-19 pandemic era. His research has been published in journals such as the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, International Migration, Journal of Industrial Relations, and Comparative Migration Studies, among others.


Silvia Stefani

Silvia Stefani hold a degree in Cultural Anthropology and a PhD in Social Science. Currently she is now post-doc fellowship at the University of Genova. She has carried out ethnographic research in Cape Verde, Brazil and Italy, investigating urban social inequalities with an intersectional perspective. She also focused on welfare system and homelessness, and coordinated on these topics the Erasmus+ project “HOOD Homeless’s Open Dialogue”. She published several articles on her research and the books “Sujeito Omi. Antropologia delle maschilità a Capo Verde” (2019) and “Favelas e Asfalto. Disuguaglianze e lotte a Rio de Janeiro” (2021).