I am an Assistant Professor at the Department of Interdisciplinary Social Science and a member of the European Centre on Migration and Ethnic Relations (ERCOMER) at Utrecht University. My research broadly deals with the processes of inclusion and exclusion of migrants and their children, using an interdisciplinary lens that draws on sociology, psychology, and political science, and methods ranging from (quasi-)experimental and longitudinal designs to mixed-methods approaches. Theoretically, I draw on and contribute to work on intergroup relations, acculturation, and belonging, using these frameworks to understand how migrants' lives and the societies that receive them mutually shape one another.

My research addresses three interconnected questions. First, I examine how recently displaced migrants rebuild their lives—both economically and socially—and how this process is shaped by societies' social reception and integration policies. Second, I study how migrants and their children develop a sense of belonging and societal ownership in the receiving society, particularly in relation to experiences of discrimination and the continued possibility—or pressure—of return migration. Third, my work investigates how anti-immigrant sentiments take root among ethnic majority populations, and how such attitudes can be mitigated, with a particular focus on the role of interethnic contact. I currently supervise five PhD candidates whose projects connect to these themes.

My work has been funded by, among others, an Instituut GAK NIAS fellowship (2026), the NWO Open Competition Grant XS (2025), and three Focus Area seed grants and two PhD funding awards at Utrecht University. My research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, the European Sociological Review, and the Journal of Refugee Studies. In addition, I have authored several public reports on refugees' integration process and the role of policy therein, which has been awarded with the biennial Prize for Policy Research of the Dutch Sociological Association (NSV) and the Association for Policy Research (VBO) (2022). I currently collaborate with the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP), and serve as a member of project supervision committees for Instituut GAK, the Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek- en Datacentrum (WODC), and the Directie Samenleving en Integratie at the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment. Within Utrecht University, I strengthen interdisciplinary collaboration by having founded the Special Interest Group on Forced Migration in 2025.

I trained in social psychology (Research Master, University of Groningen, cum laude) before completing my PhD (2012–2017) at the Centre for Political Research in collaboration with the Center for Social and Cultural Psychology at the University of Leuven. My PhD examined contextual and intergroup determinants of prejudice toward immigrants.  I then worked as a postdoctoral researcher and research manager (2017–2021) in the Department of Public Administration and Sociology at Erasmus University Rotterdam, where I led a quasi-experimental, three-wave panel study on the social and economic acculturation of recently arrived refugees and the effects of local integration policy.