Youth Mobilities, Aspirations and Pathways
Team Members
Chief Investigator
Contact: anita.harris@deakin.edu.au
Anita HARRIS is a Distinguished Professor in Sociology in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University. A leading youth sociologist, her research focuses on mobilities, citizenship, and changing forms of participation in a globalised and digital world. She is a former ARC Future Fellow, and is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in recognition of her contribution to the field. She has published books on youth belonging, young people’s everyday multiculturalism, and in girls’ studies. Her work brings together critical youth studies and migration scholarship to advance understanding of young people’s lives in contexts of global movement, diversity, and digital transformation.
Chief Investigator
Contact: l.baldassar@ecu.edu.au
Loretta BALDASSAR is Vice Chancellor’s Professorial Research Fellow at Edith Cowan University (ECU) and Professor of Anthropology and Sociology. Loretta leads the ECU Research Program in Migration, Diversity and Care incorporating the Social Ageing (SAGE) Futures Lab, TRACS Diversity Research Network, Rainbow Migrants Living Lab and the Harmony Hub. One of Australia’s leading social scientists, her work is widely acknowledged as foundational to the field of transnational family studies. Loretta’s research focuses on ageing across the life course, including youth mobilities, second generation migrant experiences and identities, intergenerational family and community relations, culture and linguistic diversity, and the role of new technologies in supporting care and wellbeing across generations.
Project Officer
Nadishka WEERASURIYA
Nadishka WEERASURIYA is YFAM's Project Officer and a PhD Candidate at the University of Melbourne, where she also works as a sessional academic and research assistant. Her research examines how first-generation migrants negotiate identity and belonging in Australia, with a particular focus on how their multiliteracies and the broader social and political discourses both reflect and shape these negotiations. She has a strong interest in critical theory and dialogic methodologies. A former teacher and school leader, Nadishka also worked on the longitudinal mixed-methods youth research project Life Patterns.
Research Fellow
Chunyuan GAO
Chunyuan GAO is an Associate Research Fellow at Deakin University. He obtained his PhD from The Australian National University and has completed advanced training in data analysis with IBM and SAS. His research focuses on poverty, well-being, capabilities, youth, and migration. As a mixed-methods researcher, Chunyuan is proficient in a wide range of research methodologies and analytical tools, with expertise in statistical modelling and data visualisation. His doctoral research combined in-depth qualitative fieldwork with sophisticated quantitative analysis of large-scale survey data. Chunyuan has provided research consultation, technical assistance to a number of prestigious institutions and organisations, and was a core member of the World Bank TCC6 project.
Advisory Board
Shanthi ROBERTSON
Shanthi ROBERTSON is the Executive Director of The Insight Centre, a research consultancy for social purpose and public interest organisations, and Adjunct Associate Professor and Principal Research Fellow at Western Sydney University. With 20 years’ experience across academic research and research consulting, she has worked with Commissions, government departments, advocacy organisations and universities, leading research for evidence-driven communications and advocacy, and working with culturally and linguistically diverse and First Nations communities. Her academic work has gained national and international recognition in migration, cultural diversity, youth studies and urban sociology. Shanthi was a former Chief Investigator and Partner Investigator on YMAP.
Rachel BROOKS
Rachel BROOKS is Professor of Higher Education at the University of Oxford, editor-in-chief of the British Journal of Sociology of Education, and co-editor of the ‘Research into Higher Education’ book series (published by Routledge). Rachel’s research focuses primarily on the sociology of higher education. Particular areas of expertise include international student mobility (and processes of internationalisation and Europeanisation in higher education more generally); student politics and protest; and ensuring equity in access to and outcomes within higher education. She has published 17 books, the most recent of which is Post-Brexit Student Mobilities (with Johanna Waters).
Francis COLLINS
Francis L. COLLINS is a Professor in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Auckland. His research encompasses a focus on the regulation and experiences of temporary migration, racism and workplace exploitation; international student mobilities; and the relationship between migration and cities. Francis has undertaken research in New Zealand, Australia, Singapore and South Korea. He is currently the Aotearoa New Zealand lead for an international research partnership examining temporary labour migration in the settler colonial contexts of Australia, Canada, the US and Aotearoa New Zealand. Francis is the co-author of Edges of Empire: The Politics of Immigration in Aotearoa New Zealand (Auckland University Press 2025) and author of Global Asian City: Migration, Desire and the Politics of Encounter in 21st Century Seoul (Wiley 2018). Co-edited volumes include Intersections of Inequality, Migration and Diversification (Palgrave 2020), Aspiration, Desire and the Drivers of Migration (Routledge 2020), Handbook of Transnationalism (Edward Elgar 2022) and Migration Studies and the Decolonial Challenge (Edward Elgar 2026)
Russell KING
Russell KING is Emeritus 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.
Brenda S.A YEOH
Brenda S.A. YEOH FBA is Distinguished Professor, Department of Geography, National University of Singapore (NUS) and Migration and Mobilities Cluster, Asia Research Institute, NUS. She was awarded the Vautrin Lud Prize for outstanding achievements in Geography in 2021 for her contributions to migration and transnationalism studies. Her research interests in Asian migrations span themes including social reproduction and care migration; skilled migration and cosmopolitanism; and marriage migrants and cultural politics. She has published widely on these topics and her recent books include Migration Studies and the Decolonial Challenge (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2026, with F. Collins and S.Y. Koh); Handbook of Gender and Mobilities (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2024 with V. Preston, S. McLafferty and M. Maciejewska); The Question of Skill in Cross Border Mobilities (Routledge, 2023 with G. Liu-Farrer and M. Baas); Handbook of Migration and the Family (Edward Elgar, 2023 with J. Waters); and Handbook of Transnationalism (Edward Elgar, 2022 with F.L. Collins).
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 'Enchanted realism: Representations of self-fulfilment among Italian Youth after the pandemic.'
Valentina MAZZUCATO
Valentina MAZZUCATO is a Professor of Globalisation and Development at Maastricht University. Professor Mazzucato has recently completed a European Research Council Consolidator Grant funded project entitled ‘Mobility Trajectories of Young Lives: Transnational Youth in Global South and North (MO-TRAYL). In this project, she and her team investigated 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, the team has drawn into 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 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.
Professor Mazzucato is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. She regularly gives keynote speeches in academic and policy-oriented events.
PhD Students
Current
Tshering PHUNTSHO
Tshering PHUNTSHO is a PhD candidate at Edith Cowan University’s Program of Research in Migration, Diversity and Care and the Social Ageing (SAGE) Futures Lab. His current research, which is a part of the YFAM project, explores the impact of mobility on transitions to adulthood among the young Bhutanese migrants working in the care sector in Australia. Tshering’s research interests are in the areas of migration, ageing, social work, development, and wellbeing.
Recently Completed
Alex LEE
Alex LEE completed her PhD at the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. Her research project explored young Australians' everyday practices of emplacement and belonging in transnational lives, with a focus on Australians of diverse cultural and migrant backgrounds. She examines how their embodied relation to places, people, and identity labels, can create a sense of place or displacement. Alex completed a Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Sociology at the Australian National University. Her research interests include multiculturalism, race and whiteness, gender, mixed identities, family, and place.
Giulia MARCHETTI
Giulia MARCHETTI completed her PhD in Anthropology and Sociology at the University of Western Australia. Her research project examined how transnational mobility can impact on identity and youth-to-adulthood transition among young Italians who have moved to Australia and those who have returned to Italy. Giulia’s research interests centre on migration, refugees, racism, women, youth and ageing population in Italy.
Yan WANG
Yan WANG recently completed her PhD at the Institute for Culture and Society (ICS), Western Sydney University. She is a bilingual sociologist with over ten years of research experience across Australia and China. Her research sits at the intersection of migration, ageing, intergenerational relationships, health, care, and culturally and linguistically diverse communities. Yan brings extensive experience in qualitative, quantitative, and mixed-method research, including ethnography, grounded theory, in-depth interviews, participant observation, focus groups, surveys, policy evaluation, and report writing. Across university- and policy-based projects, she has worked with migrant communities, older adults, government and community stakeholders, and interdisciplinary research teams. She also bring strong academic and professional writing skills in both Chinese and English, including report drafting, translation, transcription, and publication development.
Hao ZHENG
Dr Hao ZHENG is a Research Fellow at the Influencer Ethnography Research Lab at Curtin University. Hao obtained her PhD from Deakin University after graduation from the University of Melbourne with first-class honours. Hao is a Chinese queer female researcher with expertise in sociology, cultural studies, and media studies. Her work focuses on gender and sexuality, transnational mobility, and digital cultures. Hao’s doctoral research explored the experiences of Chinese queer female students in Australia, examining how they craft their queer and adult identities in a transnational context. Her research has been published in The Sociological Review, Journal of Homosexuality, and International Journal of Cultural Studies. Hao is an ad-hoc reviewer for Social Media and Society, Mobilities, and LGBTQ+ Family: An Interdisciplinary Journal. She has held several editorial roles, including Editor of three Routledge edited volume and handbooks (under review), as well as Guest Editor of a special issue of Inter-Asia Cultural Studies.