Director
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Saara Pellander
Director +358 40 127 1070 saara.pellander@migrationinstitute.fi
D. Soc. Sc., Associate professor
Support desk
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Kirsi Sainio
Administrative director +358 40 668 5904 kirsi.sainio@migrationinstitute.fi
- Secretary of the Board of Directors and Board of Administration
- Financial and human resources management
- Coordination of publication production
- Subeditor and layout of the Siirtolaisuus-Migration quarterly
- Miscellaneous graphic works (layout and image processing of publications, invitations, brochures, etc.)
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Mika Orjala
Research Funding Specialist +358 40 120 4409 mika.orjala@migrationinstitute.fi
MSc
- Support in applying research funding
- Grant Writing
- Support in implementation and reporting of projects
- Fundraising for the Migration Institute of Finland
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Jarno Heinilä
Archivist +358 40 631 3042 jarno.heinila@migrationinstitute.fi
BA
- Reception, acquisition and management of and access to archival materials
- Information service: Migration Collections, Emigrant register
- Tasks related to the management of the organization’s archive
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Katri Kanervo
Information specialist +358 40 130 4681 katri.kanervo@migrationinstitute.fi
MA
- Information services
- Library: Information search, collection management, acquisition, cataloguing, customer service, inter-library loans
- Classification and storage of electronic data and traditional written information material
- Communications: Daily communications, press releases, newsletters, brochures, social media, website of the Migration Institute of Finland, media monitoring
- Tasks related to event production
- Tasks related to publication production
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Krista Mielismäki-Kettunen
Management assistant +358 40 724 9802 krista.mielismaki@migrationinstitute.fi
BBA
- Financial administration
- IT support
- Office tasks
Research and information service
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Marja Tiilikainen
Research Director, Senior Research Fellow +358 40 684 3814 marja.tiilikainen@migrationinstitute.fi
PhD, Associate professor
- Cross-border immigrant families and family practices
- Illness and healing as cultural phenomena
- Religious everyday life
- Family separation and everyday security
- Somali diaspora
- Research Integrity Adviser at the Migration Institute of Finland
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Tomas Hanell
Senior Research Fellow +358 40 120 4573; +358 45 651 9120 tomas.hanell@migrationinstitute.fi
D.Sc (Tech)
- Domestic migration
- Regional development
- Geography of quality of life
- Statistical indicators and the politics of measurement
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Samira Saramo
Senior Research Fellow +358 40 355 5816 samira.saramo@migrationinstitute.fi
Ph.D., Associate Professor
- Migration and Ethnicity in Canadian and United States History
- Place-making and Community-building
- Histories of Experience and Emotion
- Settler Colonialism and Migration
- Transnational Death and Mourning
- Transdisciplinary Methodologies
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Markku Mattila
Senior Research Fellow +358 44 259 2447 markku.mattila@migrationinstitute.fi
PhD, Associate professor
- Population policy
- Minorities
- Migration
- Social history
- History of science and ideas
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Eveliina Lyytinen
Senior Research Fellow +358 400 219 184 eveliina.lyytinen@migrationinstitute.fi
DPhil, Associate professor
- Forced migration
- Exile
- Deportation of asylum seekers
- Qualitative research methods
- Research ethics
- Urban exile
- Deputy Research Integrity Adviser at the Migration Institute of Finland
- IMISCOE Standing Committee on Forced Migration and Refugees, Event Coordinator
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Magnus Enlund
Project manager +358 44 559 2447 magnus.enlund@migrationinstitute.fi
MA, doctoral student
- Finland-Swedish migration
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Mika Raunio
Research Fellow +358 44 925 5042 mika.raunio@migrationinstitute.fi
LicSc (Admin)
- Migration and regional development
- International migration of talent
- Regional attraction
- Emerging economies
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Toni Ahvenainen
Junior Research Fellow +358 40 164 6762 toni.ahvenainen@migrationinstitute.fi
MSSc
- Urbanisation
- Regional development
- Project communication
- EN
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Sari Vanhanen
Research Fellow +358 40 163 4890 sari.vanhanen@migrationinstitute.fi
D. Soc. Sc., adult educator
- Multi-agency collaboration
- Two-way integration
- Professional knowledge and guidance related to ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity
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Elli Heikkilä
Research director emerita +358 40 069 5452 elli.heikkila@migrationinstitute.fi
PhD, Associate professor
- Immigrants in the labour market
- Multicultural marriages
- International students
- Unaccompanied refugee children
- Expatriate Finns
- Internal migration
- Regional development
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Linda Bäckman
Research Fellow +358 40 6857413 linda.backman@migrationinstitute.fi
PhD
- Multilingualism
- Language and identity
- Narrative research
- Superdiversity and integration
- New speakers of minority languages
- Research and social activism
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Camilla Marucco Al-Mimar
Research Fellow Camilla will be on leave of absence and will not reply e-mails or calls from 3.1. to 3.9.2025. If you have any inquiries related to her research work in the “Endings” project, please contact project PI Eveliina Lyytinen (eveliina.lyytinen@migrationinstitute.fi) +358 406 739 120 camilla.marucco@migrationinstitute.fi
PhD
- Refugeehood and citizenship
- Temporalities
- Feminist methodologies
- Research ethics
- Chairperson, ETMU ry
- Co-coordinator with Leonardo Custódio, Activist Research Network
- Board member, We See You ry
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Pihla Siim
Research Fellow +358 40 129 3539 pihla.siim@migrationinstitute.fi
PhD
- Transnational families
- Narrative research
- Children and mobility
- Estonians in Finland
- Effects of the threat of deportation on families
- Migration and intimate relations
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Rewan Kakil
Artist +358 40 704 9226 rewankakil.ahmed@migrationinstitute.fi
Visual artist
- Photography
- Videography
- Directing
- Musician
- Video editing
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Ahmed Zaidan
Artist +358 40 685 7561 ahmad.ahmad@migrationinstitute.fi
Bachelor of Arts in Translation (BA), University of Mosul
- Poetry
- Creative writing
- Refugeehood
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Erna Bodström
Research Fellow +358 40 678 2021 erna.bodstrom@migrationinstitute.fi
D. Soc. Sc.
- Refugeehood and residence permits
- Asylum process
- Asylum politics
- Asylum activism
- Integration and citizenship
- Administrative texts
- Textual and visual methods
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Pekka Kettunen
Senior Research Fellow pekka.kettunen@migrationinstitute.fi
D. Soc. Sc., Associate professor
- Organisation
- Implementation and evaluation
- Comparative study
- Municipal research
- Integration
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Tuire Liimatainen
Senior Research Fellow tuire.liimatainen@migrationinstitute.fi
PhD
- Ethnicity
- Identity and belonging
- Diasporas and transnational communities
- Ethnopolitics and minority activism
- Sweden-Finns
- Expatriate Finns
- Digital media
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Jaana Palander
Senior Research Fellow +358 44 4915830 jaana.palander@migrationinstitute.fi
Dr. (Admin)
- Migration management
- Migration law
- Basic and human rights
- Family reunification
- Legal aid
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Mimosa Suontama
Research Assistant mimosa.suontama@migrationinstitute.fi
VTK
- Bordering
- (Non)belonging
- ‘Migrantizing’ the citizen
- Narrative research
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Yasmin Samaletdin
Interaction Coordinator – SRC funded Mobile Futures project yasmin.samaletdin@migrationinstitute.fi
M.A. (Ed.)
Coordination, communication and interaction of the SRC funded Mobile Futures project
Visiting researchers and visitors
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Nina Carlsson
Visiting researcher nina.carlsson@migrationinstitute.fi
PhD
- Citizenship and naturalization
- Language and civic knowledge testing
- Linguistic justice
- National minorities
- Mainstreaming of the far right
- Deportability
- Critical policy analysis
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Jeffrey Wall
Visiting researcher jeffrey.wall@utu.fi
PhD
- Ethno-ecology
- Cultural value of environmental quality
- Slow-Onset environmental migrations
- Indigenous-led conservation
- Gendered ecological knowledge
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Juha Tainio
Visitor +358 440 4706 13 juha.tainio@migrationinstitute.fi
Journalist
- Oskari Tokoi
- Ragnar Lassinantti
- Swedish-Finns and Swedish-Finnishness
- Northern language borders
Also at the moment
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Also at the moment
Jenni Kyrövaara, research assistant
jenni.kyrovaara@migrationinstitute.fi
Iida Pulkkinen, archives trainee
iida.a.pulkkinen@utu.fi