I am a Senior Research Fellow at the Migration Institute of Finland, and a docent of Nordic Studies at the University of Helsinki. My research centres on issues of migration, borders, nationalism and ethnicity in the Nordic nation/welfare states. I am currently the chair of the Nordic Migration Research –network (2021-2022), that publishes The Nordic Journal of Migration Research.

I lead the Academy of Finland -funded project Gatekeeping the Nation: Deportation at Finnish Borderscapes from the Cold War to Europeanisation (GATE, 2022-2026). The project seeks to address the lack of long-term understanding of deportations as state practice through undertaking the first systematic long-term analysis of deportation policy and practice in the case of Finland.

I am currently also writing a monograph with the working title Writing the Past White: Nation and Race in Finnish National Histories, supported by a Kone Foundation scholarship. The book examines how historians have constructed national narratives through inclusions, exclusions and silences.

I am further the country PI in the international collaborative projects Ethnic Stereotypes Over Time – a Nordic Comparison (Future Challenges in The Nordics -programme, 2022-2026) and Displacement, placemaking and wellbeing in the city (Academy of Finland 2019-2022). I am also part of the Nordic project Histories of Refugeedom in the Nordic Countries (NOS-HS 2020-2022).

My work has been awarded the Vuoden tiedekynä –academic writing award (2017) and the Finnish State Award for Public Information (2013). I received my PhD at the European University Institute (2010) and have worked as a visiting scholar at the Columbia University, the London School of Economics, and the City University of New York. I teach frequently at the University of Helsinki, and supervise MA and PhD thesis, including the ongoing PhD projects of MA Tuire Liimatainen, MSSc Anniina Hyttinen and MA Ryan Ingerick. Besides academic work, I engage in museum and artistic collaborations, and have co-hosted the popular science podcast Päivystävät dosentit (Yle Areena).