Valentina Di Stasio is Associate Professor at the Department of Interdisciplinary Social Science and the European Research Centre on Migration and Ethnic Relations (ERCOMER). Her research interests are in the field of social stratification, with a focus on labour market inequalities. Her work is comparative and based on both experimental (correspondence tests and factorial surveys) and observational methods. From September 2022, Valentina is also a Visiting Fellow at the European University Institute (EUI).

Valentina recently coordinated a field experiment to test ethnic, gender and religious discrimination in the British labour market. This study was part of the GEMM project (gemm2020.eu), the first cross-nationally harmonized field experiment on hiring discrimination conducted simultaneously in five European countries. This work attracted extensive media coverage (e.g., The Economist, The Guardian, BBC News, WiredUK, NRC Handelsblad), see the links at the bottom of this page. In 2021, she received the ERC Starting Grant for the project TARGETS (2022-2027), a cross-national multi-actor and multi-method study of: 1) the process through which ethnic discrimination claims are recognized as valid, at the workplace and in the courtroom; 2) the strategies HR managers and their organizations adopt to prevent workplace discrimination; 3) the coping strategies employed by victims to react to episodes of discrimination experienced in the past and avoid discriminatory employers in the future. Valentina is also a workpackage coordinator of the project EQUALSTRENGTH (Horizon Europe), a cross-national consortium committed to the study of systemic and intersectional discrimination, using surveys and experimental methods.

Her research has been published in: Annual Review of Sociology, British Journal of Sociology, Sociology, Social Forces, European Sociological Review, Journal of European Social Policy, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, Social Science Research, Social Psychology Quarterly, etc. Valentina's most recent work has focused on three lines of inquiry:

1. Islamophobia and anti-Muslim discrimination in European labour markets

2. From the ballot box to the workplace: discrimination of EU nationals after the Brexit referendum

3. Ethnic stereotypes through a gendered, multi-group and cross-national lens

Before her appointment at UU, Valentina was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Sociology at the University of Oxford (Nuffield College) and at the WZB Berlin Social Science Centre. She is currently a Research Fellow of both institutions. Valentina obtained her doctoral degree from the University of Amsterdam in January 2014. Her PhD thesis - "Why Education Matters to Employers: A Vignette Study in Italy, England and the Netherlands" - was awarded the "Best dissertation of the year" prize by the European Consortium for Sociological Research (ECSR).

Next to her academic work, Valentina is often involved in impact activities and knowledge dissemination events with policy makers and the public at large. She has collaborated with the OECD and wrote reports on skill shortages and youth unemployment for the European Commission.

• Open access article on discrimination of Europeans in post-Brexit Britain
• Open access article on anti-Muslim discrimination
• Article on hiring discrimination in The Economist
• Article on hiring discrimination in The Guardian
• Article on hiring discrimination in BBC News
• Article on hiring discrimination in WiredUK
• The WIRED Podcast with a summary of the GEMM findings
• EQUALSTRENGTH project website