My work at the moment revolves around two interconnected interests.
One is research, by which I mean that I study, think about, collaborate and publish on the social phenomena that interest me and for which I believe to be important. So far, most of my research has been at the intersection of sociology of higher education, sociology of organizations, infrastructures and practices of comparisonasm well as global and transnational dynamics.
My main research project at the moment deals with the history of comparing universities across countries (with a focus on information and data infrastructures enabling them).
The research I do is primarily qualitative, case-oriented, and focuses on tracing and accounting for change in history. This allows me to study a phenomenon in-depth, while drawing on diverse empirical methods and material, including documents, interviews, archives, and observations.
The other interest is writing. I am especially interested in what is conventionally known as “academic writing,” although I prefer to think of it as writing about complex things that is meant to be understood by a range of audiences, from highly specialized expert ones to lay.
I think of writing as a craft. As a non-native English speaker in an environment in which reading, speaking, and writing in English is a matter of professional survival, I have always been acutely interested in what it meant to put thoughts into written words. But also the other way round: how our reading and writing choices and habits shape our thinking.
To date, I have organized and co-organized writing workshops for early-career scholars, curated web pages with resources on academic writing, and helped dozens of BA, MA, and PhD students make their academic writing clearer, more effective, and nicer to read.