I am a postdoctoral researcher in the AISSR’s Urban Geographies program group. Connecting urban studies, housing studies, and critical demography, my research examines how housing is entangled in the formation and everyday experience of urban inequalities.

I hold a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Amsterdam. My doctoral research on the housing trajectories of EU migrants in the Netherlands was conducted in partnership with the PBL (Dutch Environmental Assessment Agency). This partnership reflects my interest in balancing societal impact with theoretical en methodological rigor. I have a passion for mixed method research, combining large scale register data analysis with qualitative methods like in-depth biographic interviewing.

Most of my research focusses on groups in vulnerable positions, affective lived experiences and housing policies. My work on urban affect during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-2023, PI Dr. Fenne Pinkster, funded by municipality of Amsterdam) explored how residents develop diverse emotional attachments to the city, challenging narrow definitions of urban belonging as simply “feeling home”. Research on homelessness (2020-2022, PI Dr. Nienke Boesveldt, funded by various Dutch municipalities) examined the shift to a housing-led model of deinstitutionalization, revealing how housing has become an instrument for governing socially excluded populations. During my Research Masters (2017-2019, thesis supervised by Prof. Maria Kaika), I studied post-crisis mortgage regulation in Amsterdam and Vancouver. This comparative study showed how regulations designed to mitigate financial risks now impose heavier burdens on households through risky lending strategies.

Collectively, these research projects reveal the interplay between housing systems and social inequality. By examining both institutional structures and lived experiences, my work contributes to understanding how urban inequalities are produced, experienced, and potentially transformed.

Research methods

• Mixed methods
• Quantitative life course methods (e.g. sequence analysis)  
• Qualitative methods (e.g. biographic interviewing)

Current research projects

Passende huisvesting: Homelessness and adequate housing (NWA consortium project, 2025-2028)

This large consortium project led by Hogeschool Utrecht will develop key academic and practical insights on how to successfully implement housing-based approaches to homelessness, seeing access to adequate housing (passende huisvesting) as a crucial ingredient to reduce homelessness.

As a postdoctoral researcher I will study the longitudinal housing trajectories of people experiencing homelessness under supervision of dr. Cody Hochstenbach.

Navigating housing beyond arrival (PhD research UvA & PBL, 2021-2025)

My PhD research highlights the embodied and active nature of EU migrants’ residential moves, putting the ‘life’ back in life course studies. Using a mixed-method approach—combining register data with migrants’ personal accounts— the research deepens understanding of EU labour migrants’ housing journeys, addressing gaps in current scholarship that focuses mainly on initial challenges while neglecting long-term housing experiences. Moreover, EU labour migrants are often treated as a homogenous group, neglecting important intra-group differences. The findings reveal how housing challenges evolve over time, with especially older, lower-income and single migrants experiencing recurring housing. Even when material housing conditions improve, the memories of precarity linger, showing that housing precarity is not merely a temporary arrival condition, but an ontological temporal experience.

My PhD research was supervised by prof. Dorien Manting and dr. Fenne Pinkster.

I am also involved in teaching.

Currently, I supervise the thesis projects of (research) master students.

Courses

Guest lecture titled “Outsiders in the City” in the course Advanced Urban Geography: Global and Local Perspectives on Cities as part of the Urban Geography master program.

Guest lecture titled "Labour Migration and Housing” in the course Migration and Population as part of the Urban Geography bachelor program.