I am a University Researcher and Team Leader at the University of Helsinki EuroStories CoE, and a docent of Nordic Studies. My research centres on issues of migration, minorities, nationalism and borders in the Nordic nation/welfare states.

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 addresses 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 also working on a monograph 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 and racial narratives of the past through inclusions, exclusions and silences.

I am the country PI of a collaborative Swedish-Finnish project Ethnic Stereotypes Over Time – a Nordic Comparison (Future Challenges in The Nordics -programme, 2022-2026) and part of the Nordic project Histories of Refugeedom in the Nordic Countries (NOS-HS 2020-2023).

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, among others. I teach frequently and supervise MA and PhD thesis, including the ongoing PhD projects of 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).