I am an associate professor at the political science department, and research theme co-leader of the Diverse Europe group of the Amsterdam Research Centre for European Studies at the UvA. Between September 2019 and February 2021 I acted as chair of the UvA-wide Taskforce on Social Safety, which resulted in the report Breaking the Silences. Social Safety at the University of Amsterdam. I am co-founding editor of the European Journal of Politics and Gender and the previous director of the Amsterdam Research Center for Gender and Sexuality (2016-2019).
My research focuses on political representation and equality of ethnic/racial and sexual minorities and women in Europe. I received the highly competitive Veni grant (2013-2016) from the NWO (Dutch Research Council) and a NWO Vidi grant (2017-2023). I was an affiliated researcher of the Open Research Area-funded project Pathways to Power: The Political Representation of Citizens of Immigrant Origin in Seven European Democracies (PATHWAYS) (2013-2016). Recently, I have been awarded a Porticus grant (2022-2024) for a project on political careers of ethnic minoritized politicals actors and a Horizon Europe grant (2023-2026) in the Feminist Democracy scheme with an international consortium. My co-authored work has been awarded with the Politics 2018 Best Article Award, American Political Science Association (APSA) 'Cynthia Weber Award' for the best paper presented at the 2019 annual meeting on the topic of sexuality and politics and the Journal of Common Market Studies Best Article Prize for 2021.
The past years I have received various international competitive residential fellowships: Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Alumni Short Return Visiting Fellowship at the Berlin Institute for Integration and Migration Research (BIM), Humboldt University Berlin (2021); AvH fellowship at the Social Science Center Berlin - WZB (2020-2021); fellowship Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (2016-2017); fellowship Women and Public Policy Program Harvard Kennedy School (2014-2015); visiting scholarship at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University (January-June 2012).
I am past co-convenor of the Standing Group Gender & Politics of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) (2013-2016). In July 2019 my team and I hosted the European Conference of Politics & Gender at the UvA.
I believe in public and academic service and currently serve on a range of committees and boards such as: