Department: Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy

Rossella Marino has obtained her PhD in Social Work and Social Pedagogy at Ghent University in September 2023, being also a PhD fellow at UNU-CRIS since 2019. Her research has revolved around European migration governance in The Gambia. For that, she has spent extended fieldwork visits in the West African country. This research has been published in top-tier migration-related journals, such as the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies and the Journal of Refugee Studies. Rossella has presented at relevant migration- and Africa-related academic conferences, including IMISCOE and ECAS. She currently teaches Social Work and Social Pedagogical literature at Ghent university. Prior to her PhD, Rossella was research intern at UNU-CRIS and VUB’s Institute for European Studies (IES).

Ine Lietaert holds a PhD in Social Work and works as an associate professor at the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy where she teaches International Social Work and Mobility Justice. She combines this with a professorship in Migration Governance and Regional Integration Studies at the United Nations University- CRIS, where she coordinates the Migration and Social Policy research cluster. Her research focuses on the governance of ‘welfare’ and ‘mobility’. More specifically, she focusses on the impact of geopolitics, political economy and knowledge production – both globally and locally – on social work and social support, with particular attention for refugees, returnees, unaccompanied minors and (internally) displaced persons. She centralises the impact of im/material bordering processes and imaginaries on people’s lives, paying attention to their sense of belonging, their survival strategies and their access to social support, through a socio-spatial research approach.

Dr. Giacomo Orsini concluded his doctoral studies at the Department of Sociology of the University of Essex in 2016. Before joining Ghent University, he worked as postdoctoral researcher both at Essex and the Université Catholique de Louvain. Since 2015, he also teaches courses on migration, race, ethnicity and the politics of diversity at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. While Orsini’s most recent research is concerned with unaccompanied minors’ migration into Europe and the structural violence they face along their trajectories, he previously conducted research on institutional racism within family reunification in Belgium, and a series of field investigations in key locations of Europe’s migration regime. His studies concentrate on the (coloniality of the) everyday governance of migration and the multiplication of tangible and intangible borders of (racist) exclusion and inclusion. At CESSMIR, he coordinates both the ChildMove and the REFUFAM projects.

Ilse Derluyn is full professor at the Department of Social Work and Social Pedagogy at Ghent University (Belgium). Her main research topics concern the wellbeing of young refugees and migrants, unaccompanied refugee minors, victims of trafficking and war-affected children, both in the Global North and South. She has widely published and is also active in training and support for practitioners and policymakers. Ilse also gives counselling to refugees. She is also actively involved in UGent-policy, including the ’12th ZAP-member’ in the Board of Governors, and previously as member of the Research Council. Ilse was ERC-grant holder of the research project ChildMove (www.childmove.eu) and coordinated the H2020-project RefugeesWellSchool (www.refugeeswellschool.org). She is director of the Centre for the Social Study of Migration and Refugees (CESSMIR) at Ghent University, and co-director of CCVS (www.ccvsinternational.org).

I am the coordinator of CESSMIR. In this role, I foster collaborations between the various disciplines within CESSMIR and with partners outside of academia. My goal is to achieve societal impact as a result of these collaborations. I have a master’s degree in orthopedagogy and wrote my PhD in educational sciences at the department of social work and social pedagogy. My doctoral research dealt with integration and belonging in a multi- and intergenerational perspective. I also took a critical look at the concept of integration. After completing my PhD, I coordinated the research project ‘Childmove’, which focused on the impact of flight experiences on the psychosocial well-being of unaccompanied refugee minors. My research interests are inter- and multigenerational aspects of families with a migration background, psychosocial well-being of unaccompanied minors and integration.

Gaëlle is a PhD Fellow at the Ghent University and the United Nations University CRIS. Her research documents and analyses the social consequences of not (fully) internationally recognised borders in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. She examines the accessibility of social welfare services in Transnistria and Abkhazia as well as in Samegrelo, with a focus on the role of civil society organiations (CSOs). Prior, Gaëlle has worked in project management and international cooperation in Belgium, Croatia, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine. She was also a researcher on EU funded projects related to the social aspects of migrations. Gaëlle has presented her work in international conferences, including CEEISA, BASEES and EUIA for which she was also the academic coordinator. She has lectured in at Ghent University, Université Libre de Brussels, Tbilisi State University, Georgia, and the Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales, Argentina.