I joined Centre for European Studies (CES) in the University Helsinki as Professor of European Societies and their Politics in November 2022.

I was previously Professor of Gender Studies at Tampere University (2017-2022). I obtained my PhD in Politics at the University of Bristol in 2004 and became Docent in Politics at the University of Helsinki in 2007. I am the Distinguished Visiting Professor of Gender and EU Studies in the University of Tübingen, Germany (2022-2025).

Research projects:

• Director of the research project EUGenDem: "Gender, party politics and democracy in Europe: A study of European Parliament's party groups" , funded by the European Research Council Consolidator Grant (2018-2023)
• PI at the University of Helsinki for CCindle: Co-Creating Inclusive Intersectional Democratic Spaces Across Europe, EU Horizon Europe (2022-2026)
• Director of the Academy of Finland (2016-2020) and University of Helsinki Research Funds (2015-2017) funded research project Gender and Power in Reconfigured Corporatist Finland (GePoCo).

Expertise and research interests:

• European integration
• European Union, actors, institutions, governance
• European Parliament, political groups
• Gender and politics
• Gender equality policies, intersectionality
• Democracy, equality, anti-gender politics, feminist responses

My monographs include Gender and Political Analysis (with Emanuela Lombardo, Palgrave, 2017), Gender and the European Union (Palgrave, 2010) and Feminists Theorize the State (Palgrave, 2006).

I have edited European Parliament’s Political Groups in Turbulent Times (Palgrave, 2022, with Petra Ahrens and Anna Elomäki); Social Partners and Gender Equality: Change and Continuity in Gendered Corporatism in Europe (Palgrave 2022; with Anna Elomäki and Paula Koskinen Sandberg); The Oxford Handbook on Gender and Politics (Oxford University Press, 2013, with Georgina Waylen, Karen Celis and Laurel Weldon), Gender and the Economic Crisis in Europe: Politics, Institutions and Intersectionality  (Palgrave 2017, with Emanuela Lombardo), Tasa-arvopolitiikan suunnanmuutoksia: Talouskriisistä tasa-arvon kriiseihin (Gaudeamus 2020, with Paula Koskinen Sandberg and Hanna Ylöstalo); Tasa-arvo toisin nähtynä: Oikeuden ja politiikan näkökulmia tasa-arvoon ja yhdenvertaisuuteen (Gaudeamus, 2012, with Kevät Nousiainen and Milja Saari) and Changing State Feminism (Palgrave, 2007, with Joyce Outshoorn).

I am the Editor of Palgrave Macmillan’s Gender and Politics Book Series with Sarah Childs.