My research sits at the intersection of sociological theory, historical sociology, and the study of knowledge infrastructures. I am currently PI of a DFG-funded project at the Robert K. Merton Center for Science Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, which examines how universities have been transformed into comparable objects through successive information and data infrastructures—from early international handbooks, through national and international databases, to contemporary cloud-based analytics platforms. The project draws on original archival research, document analysis, and interviews, and aims to contribute to the sociology of knowledge and to sociological theory more broadly.
My research is primarily qualitative and case-oriented, with a strong historical dimension. I am interested in tracing how things came to be the way they are—which requires going back to the archives, reading documents that were never meant to be read sociologically, and taking seriously the contingency of arrangements that now appear inevitable. I work across disciplinary boundaries, drawing on organization, science and technology, and higher education studies, while maintaining sociology as my primary intellectual home.
The other strand of my academic work concerns writing—specifically, the craft of writing clearly about complex things for audiences that range from specialist to lay. As a non-native English speaker who learned to write academically while also learning to think sociologically, I have always been attentive to what it means to put ideas into words, and to how the discipline of writing shapes thinking itself. I organize and deliver writing workshops for doctoral and postdoctoral researchers, with a focus on academic journal articles in English. If you are interested in hosting a workshop, feel free to get in touch.
Beyond research and writing, I engage with the communities and institutions my work is about. I currently co-chair the CoARA Working Group on University Rankings (TURN), which brings together scholars, university leaders, and policy actors to think critically about the role of rankings in research assessment. I also serve as an independent expert for the European Commission, on an ad-hoc basis since 2017, evaluating proposals and project implementation within research and higher education programmes, and have contributed in similar capacities to other national and international organisations.