Eva Østergaard-Nielsen – Full Professor of Political Science at the UAB
Eva Østergaard-Nielsen is a professor of political science at the Autonomous University of Barcelona since 2010. Her main research interests centre on the politics of migration in both receiving and origin countries, migrants’ transnational networks and, processes of migration-led democratic diffusion in countries of origin. She is a member of the advisory board of two leading journals of migration studies and the IMISCOE Research Book Series. She has been the lead researcher and participated in a range of projects funded at the national and international level, such as the Migrademo Project. Her most recent publications have appeared in Party Politics, West European Politics and European Political Science Review. For more information you can see: Google Scholar, Research Gate.
Irina Ciornei – Ramón y Cajal Postdoctoral Fellow and Assitant Professor at the UAB
Irina Ciornei was previously Marie-Sklodowska Curie Research Fellow at IBEI with the project “The missing pillar. European social policy and Eurosceptic challenges” (SOCIALEU) where she investigated the relationship between supranational social policy and Euroscepticism based on an original methodology that combines qualitative inquiry and experimental research. Irina’s work focuses on topics related to European politics, immigrant incorporation and public policy implementation. Irina holds a PhD in Political Science from the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Previously, she was also a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Bern. In her previous work, she dealt with the transnationalisation of party politics, emigrant political participation and governance of morality policies. She published her work in the Journal of Common Market Studies, West European Politics and Party Politics. For more information you can see: Google Scholar, Research Gate.
Stefano Camatarri – Ramón y Cajal Postdoctoral Fellow at the UAB
Stefano Camatarri is a Ramón y Cajal Fellow at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), where he is also a member of the research group in Transnational Relations, Democratization and Migration (TransDeM). Previously, he was a JSPS Fellow at Waseda University (Japan) and an FSR post-doctoral researcher at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium). His research interests regard the comparative study of political behaviour and attitudes, electoral competition, migrant political participation and engagement ‘across borders’. His work has appeared in international peer-reviewed journals such as European Union Politics, Political Studies Review, the Swiss Political Science Review and the International Journal of Public Opinion Research. For more information, you can see: Google Scholar, Research Gate, Orcid.
Luisa Faustini Torres – Margarita Salas Postdoctoral Researcher at the UAB
Luisa Faustini Torres is a Margarita Salas Post-doctoral Researcher at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (AUB). She holds a PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. Prior to that, she completed a Master’s in Immigration Management at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (2015) and a Master’s in International Relations at the Barcelona Institute for International Studies (2012), where she specialized in Global Governance and Foreign Policy. Her PhD research focused on the nexus between EU External Migration Policies and the Democratization of countries in the Southern Mediterranean neighbourhood (with a focus on Morocco as a case study). Her main research interests are Migration Politics and Policies and their intersection with processes of Autocratization/Democratization in the Euro-Mediterranean region and beyond. For more information, you can see LinkedIn, Orcid, Google Scholar.
Laurence Go – Juan de la Cierva Postdoctoral Fellow at the UAB
Laurence Go is a Juan de la Cierva Fellow at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). His research interests centre on political economy, development and labour economics. He has completed his PhD in Applied Economics at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. He also earned an MSc in Econometrics and Mathematical Economics at the London School of Economics and a BS in Business Economics at the University of the Philippines. He also served as a consultant at the World Bank. For more information you can see: Google Scholar, Research Gate, Website
Ahmed Kadiri – PhD candidate at the UAB
Ahmed Kadiri is a PhD candidate in the Politics, Policies and International Relations (PPIR) program at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) where he explores the nexus between return migration and democratic diffusion in the context of Morocco. He also works on the MIGRADEMO project as a Predoctoral Researcher focusing on the Moroccan case. He obtained a Master’s degree in Migration Studies at Pompeu Fabra University, in Barcelona (2018-2019), and a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations with a minor in Communication at Al Akhawayn University, in Ifrane, Morocco (2014-2018). His main research interests are migration, political engagement, political discourse analysis, remittances, and diasporas. For more information, you can see: LinkedIn.
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Fabiana Pineda – PhD candidate at the UAB
Fabiana Pineda is a PhD candidate at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). She previously worked as a humanitarian and international development researcher and practitioner. Her professional experience includes roles at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the United Nations Population Fund, where she focused on forced displacement statistics and gender equality/inclusion in policy development and programming. She earned a Master’s degree in International Development and Management from Lund University in 2021 and holds a double-Bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Relations from St. Mary’s University in 2016. Her primary areas of research interest include irregular migration, gender-based and intersectional analyses, as well as transnational governance in international migration. For more information, you can see: LinkedIn.
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Jelle van der Wal – PhD candidate at the UAB
Jelle van der Wal is a PhD candidate at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. He previously worked as a teacher at the Bachelor of Public Administration at Leiden University, The Netherlands. Currently, he is also involved as an analyst of Brazil/BRICS at The Hague Institute Geopolitics (Haagsch Instituut GeopolitiekNu), on a voluntary basis. He obtained a bachelor’s degree in International Studies (2018) and two master’s degrees in Latin American Studies (2020) and Public Administration (2021) at Leiden University. His research interests are related to migration, street-level bureaucrats, policy entrepreneurship and policy design.
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Jessica McNab – PhD candidate at the UAB
Jessica McNab is a PhD candidate at the Autonomous University of Barcelona. She holds a Master’s degree in Political Science, also from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and a Bachelor’s in Modern Language and Communication from the Catholic University of Murcia. Her main research interests include political engagement, migration, and language and education policy. For more information you can see: LinkedIn.
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Members affiliated with other institutions
Deniz Pelek – Assistant Professor at İzmir Democracy University
Deniz Pelek is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at İzmir Democracy University. She was a postdoc in the MIGRADEMO Project from February 2020 to September 2023. She obtained her Ph.D. from Bogazici University and the University of Paris-8 (cotutelle). Her research interests include agrarian studies, and migration and refugee studies. Her publications appeared in the Journal of Peasant Studies, Journal of Refugee Studies, Qualitative Research, Migrations Société and Toplum ve Bilim. For more information, you can see: Research Gate, Google Scholar, Academia.
Merve Butorac – Postdoctoral researcher
Merve Butorac (née Biten) is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Management and Production Engineering (DIGEP) at Politecnico di Torino and a visiting scholar at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), where she is part of the TransDeM research group. She earned her PhD in Political Science from the University of Amsterdam. Her research focuses on the intersection of European governance, public opinion, and economic policies, with a particular emphasis on how austerity measures influence political trust in European Union (EU) institutions. She employs advanced quantitative methods, including multilevel modelling, combining survey data with macroeconomic indicators to explore the socio-political impacts of European economic governance. Within FusEurope, Dr. Butorac works on survey design and on the quantitative analysis of the survey results. For more information, you can see: Research Gate, Google Scholar, and LinkedIn.
Míriam Acebillo Baqué – Researcher at INGENIO (CSIC-UPV)
Míriam Acebillo-Baqué is a researcher at INGENIO (CSIC-UPV). She holds a PhD in Political Science, Public Policy and International Relations from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB). She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from the UAB, a Master’s in Governance from the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex, a Master’s in Strategies, Policies and Agents of Development Cooperation from the HEGOA Institute, Universidad del País Vasco and Postgraduate in Culture of Peace from the Escola de Cultura de Pau (UAB). Her research focuses on the relationship between policies and social actors and the challenges posed by phenomena such as human mobility, inequality or the environmental crisis in contemporary societies, and includes research sub-strands related to transformative innovation; the agency of civil society in governance processes; policies on development and peace; and intersectional approaches to inequality. For more information, you can see: Research Gate, Google Scholar, and Ingenio.
Nicolas Fliess – Postdoctoral Researcher at the MPI-MMG
Nicolas Fliess is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the MPI-MMG. He supports the Diversity Assent in Urban Germany (DivA) project and conducts research on the inclusion of migrants in German political parties. Nicolas holds a PhD in Migration Studies from the University of Sussex and is a research affiliate of the ERC-funded MIGRADEMO project at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB). His research interests are political participation and inclusion of migrants with a focus on political parties, elections and civil society organisations. In his doctoral dissertation, Nicolas studied the political transnational activities of Latin American emigrants and political parties in Spain. Methodologically, he employs both quantitative and qualitative methods commonly used in political sociology. For more information, you can see: Google Scholar, Research Gate, Orcid.
Reinhard Schweitzer – Research Professor and Ramón y Cajal Postdoctoral Fellow at Universitat Abat Oliba CEU
Reinhard Schweitzer is a Research Professor and “Ramón y Cajal” Fellow at the Department of Law and Political Science of the Universitat Abat Oliba CEU in Barcelona, where he leads the international research project CITREST – Citizenship as Restitution. He holds a PhD in Migration Studies (2018) as well as degrees in Political Science and Sociology. His research focuses on the politics, practices, and challenges of governing international migration across different political and administrative levels, geographical contexts, and institutional settings. From an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective, he studies legal frameworks, everyday practices of policy implementation, and the ways in which people perceive, use, bend, or resist the rules and restrictions imposed on their mobility and “integration”. Reinhard is also a Research Associate at the Sussex Centre for Migration Research (SCMR) in Brighton (UK), Associate Editor of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies (JEMS), and Co-Director of the Brussels-based INTEGRIM-Lab, a non-profit organisation providing research services to different stakeholders working on migration and for social justice. For publications and more information, you can see: Google Scholar, Orcid, or Linkedin.
Vladimir Bortun – Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Oxford
Vlad is a critical political scientist interested in political elites, left parties, transnational politics, and the EU. He holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Portsmouth (2019). Between 2019 and 2022, Vlad worked as a postdoctoral researcher on the MIGRADEMO project at UAB. As of the end of 2022, he works as a Postdoctoral Fellow on the Changing Elites project, hosted by the Department of Social Policy and Intervention at the University of Oxford and dealing with how social and institutional change has altered the processes of elite formation in the UK over time. Here, Vlad focuses on the impact of class background on the ideology and decision-making of power elites. He is interested, in particular, in their economic policymaking and the class background of their party elites. For more information, you can see: Google Scholar, Research Gate, LinkedIn.
