I am an Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam (UvA), where I lead the Politics of Diversity research group. Currently, I am a Senior Fellow with the Brussels Institute for Advanced Studies (BrIAS).
My research has been awarded a series of highly competitive grants, including the Dutch Research Council (NWO) Veni (2013), Vidi (2017), Vici (2024) and Horizon-Europe (2025). For a complete overview of the output of running and completed projects see politcsofdiversity.eu. I am the co‑founder and consulting editor of the European Journal of Politics and Gender.
I am committed to both public and academic service and am passionate about gender equality and diversity in politics and academia. I regularly communicate my scholarly insights and findings to non-academic audiences through public panels, media interviews, lectures, keynotes and public writings. For my contribution to the position of women in the Netherlands, I was nominated for the 2025 Joke Smit Oeuvreprijs.
In recent years, I have fulfilled a range of administrative and leadership roles at UvA. I served as Head of Department (February–September 2024), led the “Diverse Europe” research theme group within the Amsterdam Research Centre for European Studies (2019–2024), and directed the Amsterdam Research Center for Gender and Sexuality (2016–2019). I also chaired the UvA-wide Taskforce on Social Safety, which resulted in the report Breaking the Silences. Social Safety at the University of Amsterdam (September 2019–February 2021).
My co-authored work has received several distinctions, including the Politics 2018 Best Article Award, the American Political Science Association (APSA) Cynthia Weber Award for the best paper on sexuality and politics presented at the 2019 annual meeting, the Journal of Common Market Studies Best Article Prize for 2021, and the Politics & Gender 2025 Best Article Award.
Over the past years, I have held various international residential fellowships: an Alexander von Humboldt (AvH) Alumni Short Return Visiting Fellowship at the Berlin Institute for Integration and Migration Research (BIM), Humboldt University Berlin (2021); an AvH fellowship at the Social Science Center Berlin – WZB (2020–2021); a fellowship at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS, 2016–2017); a fellowship at the Women and Public Policy Program, Harvard Kennedy School (2014–2015); and a visiting scholarship at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies at Harvard University (January–June 2012).