Welcome to my webpage!

I am a Reader in Human Development and Education Policy at the University of Strathclyde’s  School of Education and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh’s ESRC-funded research centre AQMeN (Applied Quantitative Methods Network) in the ‘Social Stratification and Education’ strand. I am also a Life Course Research Affiliate at the University of Queensland’s ARC Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course and a member of the Editorial Board at the BSA journal Sociology.

I investigate how and why family socioeconomic status influences the development and outcomes of individuals throughout the life course (from childhood over adolescence to adulthood). My research has been published in Sociological Science, Child Development, Sociology, the British Journal of Sociology, the European Sociological Review, and Social Science Research.

I have a Diplom (equivalent to M.A.) and a Ph.D. in Social Sciences from the University of Mannheim, Germany (supervisors Prof Walter Müller and Prof Irena Kogan). I participated in the graduate training program in empirical and quantitative methods at the Graduate School of Economic and Social Sciences (GESS) during my doctoral studies. I was also involved in several research projects at the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES) concerning social inequality in education and the labour market.

I am currently the PI of two research projects on school attendance. The ESRC Secondary Data Analysis Initiative (£201,551) funds the project ‘Social Inequalities in Educational Attainment: An Investigation into the Mediating Role of School Absenteeism’. ‘Understanding school absenteeism, education, and labour market outcomes’ is funded by the Nuffield Foundation (£214,755). See the Research section for additional details on these projects.