Advisory Board

Paolo BOCCAGNI

Paolo Boccagni is an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Trento and the Principal Investigator of the ERC Starting Grant project “HOMInG - the home-migration nexus (2016-2021)”. Paolo conducts research on international migration, transnationalism, homemaking, social welfare, diversity and care. Among his publications, those of greater interest for the YMAP project probably include the monograph Migration and the search for home (Palgrave, 2017) as well as articles in Emotion, Space and Society, Comparative Migration Studies and Social Politics.

Rachel BROOKS

Rachel Brooks is a Professor in Sociology and Associate Dean at the University of Surrey. Her research interests lie in the sociology of education and include: higher education; transitions from school to university and from education to work; lifelong learning; international education; citizenship education and political participation; the impact of friends and peers on experiences of education; and education policy.

Rachel is currently leading a large cross-national project (‘EuroStudents‘), which explores how the higher education student is understood in different European countries, and by different social actors. Rachel’s most recent books are Materialities and Mobilities in Education, with Johanna Waters, published in 2017 as part of the Routledge series on the Foundations and Futures of Education, and Student Politics and Protest: International Perspectives, which was published in the Routledge/SRHE series in 2016. She is completing Education and Society: Places, Policies, Processes, which will be published by Palgrave later in 2018.

Francis COLLINS

Francis Collins is a Professor at the National Institute of Demographic and Economic Analysis, University of Waikato.

His research focuses on international migration and cities with a particular emphasis on the experiences, mobility patterns and government regulation of temporary migrants. Prior to his current position, Francis was based at the National University of Singapore between 2007 and 2011.

He has undertaken research in New Zealand and throughout East Asia with particular focus on South Korea. Francis currently leads a programme of research funded by the Royal Society of New Zealand exploring the lives of people on temporary work visas in New Zealand, the migration of New Zealanders to Australia and shifting approaches to migration in a context of increased temporariness and circulation.

He has written over 50 articles and chapters in international academic journals and books and has appeared as a contributor and commentator on migration issues in New Zealand news media.

Enzo COLOMBO

Enzo Colombo currently works at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Milan. Enzo does research in Qualitative Social Research, Social Theory and Sociological Theory. His most recent publication is 'A generational attitude: young adults facing the economic crisis in Milan.'

Mireia FERNÁNDEZ-ARDÉVOL

Mireia is a Senior Researcher at the IN3 Interdisciplinary Institute (Universitat Oberta de Catalunya) where she serves as co-director of the research group Communication Networks & Social Change. She combines big data approaches, econometrics and qualitative techniques to gain better understanding of the way this technologies (dis)empower individual’s potentialities.

Binod KHADRIA

Binod Khadria is professor of economics and education, and Chairperson of the Zakir Husain Centre for Educational Studies within the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is also Director of the International Migration and Diaspora Studies (IMDS) Project, co-sponsored by the Government of India. His publications include The Migration of Knowledge Workers: Second-generation Effects of India's Brain Drain (Sage, 1999) and several research papers published by ILO, OECD, GCIM, IRD (France), IDE-JETRO (Japan), Harvard International Review, 2010 World Social Science Report. He is Deputy Chair (South Asia) and Regional Coordinator (India) at Asia Pacific Migration Research Network (APMRN), and sits on the Boards of International Network on Migration and Development (INMD), Zacatecas (Mexico); International Geographical Union (IGU); the Metropolis Project (Canada); IOM Migration Research and Training Centre (MRTC) in South Korea; IOM’s World Migration Report 2010; Encyclopedia of Global Human Migration (forthcoming, Wiley-Blackwell); Asian and Pacific Migration Journal (Philippines); Journal of South Asian Diaspora (India); Journal of International Migration and Integration (Canada); Oxford Review of Migration (UK) and International Journal of Organizational Studies (Slovenia).

Majella KILKEY

Dr Majella Kilkey is a Reader in Social Policy, University of Sheffield, where she co-directs the Faculty of Social Sciences Migration Research Group. She researches at the intersection of migration and family studies, focusing particularly on the intra-European Union mobility of European Union citizens, and issues of care, transnationality, gender, masculinities and work. Majella is author of three books and numerous articles and research reports, and recipient of a number of conference and research awards, including from the Economic and Social Research Council and the European Commission. She is currently Co-I on the ESRC Large Grant Sustainable Care Programme (led by Professor Sue Yeandle), in which she co-leads a stream of work on Care ‘in’ and ‘out of’ place: towards sustainable well-being in mobile and diverse contexts.

Russell KING

Russell King is Professor of Geography at the University of Sussex, and former Director of the Sussex Centre for Migration Research. Between 2001 and 2013 he was the editor of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies. Following his early interests in land tenure and agricultural geography, deriving from his PhD on the land reform of Southern Italy, Russell's research interests shifted to the study of migration, which he has been researching now for 40 years. He has directed major research projects on return migration to Southern Italy (funded by ESRC), Irish migration (Trinity Trust and the Bank of Ireland), British retirement migration to the Mediterranean (ESRC), Albanian migration (Leverhulme Trust), international student migration (HEFCE), second-generation return migration to Greece and Cyprus (AHRC) and New European Youth Mobilities (the EU Horizon 2020 ‘YMOBILITY’ project). He also headed the Sussex involvement in the EU Framework Six Network of Excellence on 'International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion in Europe' (IMISCOE), which is still ongoing as Europe’s major forum for migration research. His main regional interests are in Southern Europe and the Mediterranean, but he has also researched migration, as a global phenomenon, in other parts of the world. He is a strong believer in the value of collaborative, comparative and interdisciplinary research, and in the integration of qualitative and quantitative methods.

Valentina MAZZUCATO

Valentina Mazzucato is a Professor of Globalisation and Development at Maastricht University. In 2016, Professor Mazzucato was awarded a European Research Council Consolidator Grant for a project entitled ‘Mobility Trajectories of Young Lives: Transnational Youth in Global South and North (MO-TRAYL) In this project, she and her team investigate the relationship between youth’s history with physical mobility of all kinds to and from their or their parents’ country of origin, and their educational trajectories, psycho-social well-being and school-to-work transitions. In so doing, she aims to question commonly used categories in migration research such as ‘first and second generation’ migrants. Professor Mazzucato specializes in studying migration from a transnational perspective in which contexts of origin and settlement are equally studied in order to understand how migrants shape their lives, their families and their societies. She collaborates with European and African universities in research projects that focus on transnational migration between Africa and Europe.

She has served on the 15-member international expert committee on migration and development research of the Social Science Research Council of the US. She also served on the World Connectors' Migration and Development group charged with brining issues related to migration to a broader public. She regularly gives keynote speeches in academic and policy-oriented events.

Laura MERLA

Laura Merla is a professor of Sociology at the Université catholique de Louvain (UCL, Belgium), director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on Families and Sexualities ( CIRFASE), and founding member of MIND - research group Mobility, Interculturality and Diversity. Laura is also part of the Louvain4Ageing and Louvain4Migration groups.

She is also an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Western Australia (UWA). Her main areas of research are the sociology of the family; migration, transnational families and care; aging; social policies; and gender and masculinities.

She has conducted several research projects on transnational family networks, grouped together within the TRANSFAM research program and financed by the European Union under FP6, FP7 and H2020. In 2015 she obtained ERC Starting Grant funding for the project " MobileKids : Children in multi-local, post-separation families".

Laura is an active member of several international associations and networks such as the European Sociology Association, the Sociology of Migration and Family Research Committees of the International Sociological Association (IMISCOE) and the International Network on Leave Policies and Research.

Tracey SKELTON

Tracey Skelton is an associate professor of human geography at the National University of Singapore. In her work with young people in the cities of Singapore and Auckland (New Zealand) she has explored the multiple and complex ways in which they dwell, experience, interact and create city spaces and places. As the principal investigator of a large scale grant from the Global Asia Institute (National University of Singapore) Tracey and her team examined the intersections of urban liveability, sustainability, diversity and spaces of encounter in 4 Asian cities: Busan in South Korea; Hyderabad in India; Kunming in China and Singapore. She is currently co-investigator on a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada project exploring young people’s un/under/employment in Singapore and Toronto. She is the Editor-in-Chief of a Springer Major Reference Work of 12 volumes focusing on multiple aspects of Geographies of Children and Young People.

Johanna WYN

Johanna Wyn is a Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor in the Youth Research Centre and a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia and the Academy of Social Sciences, UK.
She is engaged in multidisciplinary and multi-method research on the ways in which young people navigate their lives in a changing world, with a focus on the areas of transition, gender, wellbeing and inequality. Her work recognises that young people are active citizens, cultural creators and active agents in learning and wellbeing. She leads the ARC funded Life Patterns longitudinal research program and has a strong research track record of competitive research grants and consultancies and tenders from a range of stakeholders, including government departments, foundations and the private sector.

Brenda S.A YEOH

Brenda S.A. Yeoh is Professor (Provost’s Chair), Department of Geography, as well as the Director of Humanities and Social Science Research (DHSSR) in the Office of Deputy President (Research & Technology), National University of Singapore. She is also the Research Leader of the Asian Migration Cluster at the Asia Research Institute, NUS.

Her research interests include the politics of space in colonial and postcolonial cities and she also has considerable experience working on a wide range of migration research in Asia, including key themes such as cosmopolitanism and highly skilled talent migration; gender, social reproduction and care migration; migration, national identity and citizenship issues; globalising universities and international student mobilities; and cultural politics, family dynamics and international marriage migrants. She has published widely in these fields.

She has been appointed to the Academic Advisory Panel for "City Hall: A Commemorative Show", National Gallery Singapore; Center for Aging, Research and Education (CARE); Conservation Advisory Panel (CAP), Urban Redevelopment Authority; Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) Board; URA Architectural Heritage Awards (AHA) Assessment Committee; National Heritage Board Academic Research Panel; National Collection Advisory Panel (NCAP), National Heritage Board; National Council on Problem Gambling (NCPG). She chairs the Heritage Advisory Panel (HAP), National Heritage Board.