People

Sirpa Wrede, D. Soc.Sc., is a Professor of Sociology at University of Helsinki. Her research interests deal with the dynamics of inequality in the social organisation of social service professionalism and social citizenship.  Her current work focuses on ageing and social ties in the context of migration and on professional groups in the context of neoliberal globalisation. She leads a research team within the Centre of Excellence in Research on Ageing and Care of which she is Vice Director. More information on her work, publications, and projects can be found on the University of Helsinki website

Dr Anne Kouvonen is a Professor of Social Policy specialising in social inequalities. She is also an Honorary Lecturer of Social Epidemiology in Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland. In CoE AgeCare RG3 Anne leads the quantitative research stream. She has published approx. 140 international peer-reviewed papers, mainly on social determinants of health. She is the Deputy Director (Co-PI) of the Helsinki Health Study, and the University of Helsinki work package leader of the Strategic Research Council-funded DigiIN consortium, in which she and her team investigate digital inequalities and challenges of digitalisation in a multicultural society 

Anne Kouvonen in the University of Helsinki

Dr Ulla Buchert is a post-doctoral researcher in Work Package 2 Care Needs of Older Migrants (OR older people with a migrant background?). She is a sociologist whose research focuses on construction of immigrancy in the ageing Finland, presently especially in the context of the activities and services implemented by the third sector organizations. Her theoretical interests include categories, categorizations and classification systems especially in the institutional contexts. Her work at the CoE is funded by the Academy of Finland.

Ulla Buchert page at the University of Helsinki website

Vanessa May is leading the qualitative research of CoE AgeCare RG3 ‘Migration, care and ageing’. She is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Co-Director of the Morgan Centre for Research into Everyday Lives at the University of Manchester. Her most recent research has explored various dimensions of belonging, with a particular focus on the temporal aspects of belonging as related for example to experiences of ageing.

Vanessa May Publications

Dr Anna-Leena Riitaoja is a post-doctoral researcher in Research Group 3 – Migration, care and ageing. Her background is in education with a special focus on migration and inequality. Her theoretical interests include the nexus of social work professional knowledge and migration issues as well as categorizations of people with migrant background in institutional contexts and encounters. Currently she works in the Swedish School of Social Science in the fields of social work and migration studies. She is also a post-doctoral researcher in the Academy funded project “Ordering the ‘migrant family’: power asymmetry work and citizenization in welfare professional bureaucracies” (2017-2021, MigraFam), led by Dr Camilla Nordberg. In RG3 her research focuses on professionalism and professional knowledge related to ageing migrant clients.

Anna-Leena Riitaoja page at the University of Helsinki

Dr Antero Olakivi is a post-doctoral researcher and a specialist in the sociological analysis of cultural meaning-making practices, symbolic interaction, and epistemic inequalities in various empirical fields including work and organizations, ageing, and care.

Antero Olakivi page at the University of Helsinki

Anastasia Asikainen (M. Soc. Sc.) is a doctoral student in sociology. She is writing her doctoral dissertation on the topic of ageing Russian-speaking minority in Finland as a part of Research Group 3 – Migration, care and ageing. Her current research interests include migration, minorities, civil society, Russian-speakers in Finland and questions of rights and belonging in the every-day related to this group.

Anastasia Asikainen page at the University of Helsinki

Laura Kemppainen (neé Lyytikäinen) works as a post-doctoral researcher in the CHARM project. She is a sociologist and her research focuses on migration, health and wellbeing especially in the context of ageing. Dr. Kemppainen’s research interests include research on inequalities, Russian studies, transnationalism and mixed methods. She acts as a principal investigator in the project Crossing Borders for Health and Wellbeing, which investigates medical travel in the Baltic Sea region.

Laura Kemppainen at the University of Helsinki

Camilla Nordberg is a university lecturer in social work and social policy at the Swedish School of Social Science at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She currently holds a Finnish Academy research fellowship for conducting the study “Citizenization in the local welfare state: migrant mothers' everyday life in restructuring urban settings”. She leads the project “Ordering the ‘migrant family’: power asymmetry work and citizenization in welfare professional bureaucracies” (2017-2021, MigraFam).  Her research has revolved around the migration welfare-state nexus, focusing on issues of citizenship, power and street-level bureaucratic encounters.

Camilla Nordberg research portal page

Nuriiar Safarov is a doctoral student at the Faculty of Social sciences in the University of Helsinki. The doctoral dissertation title is 'Digitalisation of public services: a qualitative study of Russian-speaking migrants'. His research is focusing on the digital inclusion of older and working-age migrants, by examining their experience of taking into use and using various digital social and health services.

Nuriiar Safarov page at the University of Helsinki

Veera Koskinen is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Jyväskylä. Currently she works in the project "Crossing Borders for Health and Well-being” (funded by Kone foundation), that investigates medical travel in the Baltic Sea region. Her research interests include wellness and related consumption, aging, and spa and wellness tourism. In her doctoral dissertation, she examines the pursuit of wellness in consumption and everyday life in contemporary Finland with particular focus on aging and stage of life.

Veera Koskinen page at the University of Helsinki