Director

Saara Pellander

 Director +358 40 127 1070

D. Soc. Sc., Associate professor

Researchers

Marja Tiilikainen

 Research Director, Senior Research Fellow (Research leave in spring 2026) +358 40 684 3814

PhD, Associate professor

  • Transnational families and everyday security
  • Illness and healing as cultural phenomena
  • Everyday religiosity
  • Somali diaspora
  • Ethnographic methods
  • Research Integrity Adviser at the Migration Institute of Finland
  • Finland Country Coordinator for the Migrant Integration Hub

ORCID

Samira Saramo

 Acting Research Director, Senior Research Fellow +358 40 355 5816

Ph.D., Associate Professor

 

  • Migration and Ethnicity in Canadian and United States History
  • Settler Colonialism and Migration
  • Place, Environment, and Community-building
  • Histories of Experience and Emotion
  • Transnational Death and Mourning
  • Transdisciplinary Methodologies

 

ORCID

Tomas Hanell

 Senior Research Fellow +358 40 120 4573

D.Sc (Tech)

  • Domestic migration
  • Regional development
  • Geography of quality of life
  • Statistical indicators and the politics of measurement

ORCID

Markku Mattila

 Senior Research Fellow +358 44 259 2447

PhD, Associate professor

  • Population policy
  • Minorities
  • Migration
  • Social history
  • History of science and ideas

ORCID

ResearchGate

Eveliina Lyytinen

 Senior Research Fellow +358 400 219 184

DPhil, Associate professor

  • Forced migration and refugeehood
  • Deportation of asylum seekers
  • Mixed-citizenship couples
  • Older refugees
  • Urban refugee protection
  • Qualitative research methods
  • Theories of space and trust
  • Research ethics
  • Deputy Research Integrity Adviser at the Migration Institute of Finland
  • IMISCOE Standing Committee on Forced Migration and Refugees, Coordinator

ORCID

Magnus Enlund

 Project manager +358 44 559 2447

PhD

  • Finland-Swedish migration

 

Mika Raunio

 Research Fellow +358 44 925 5042

LicSc (Admin)

  • Migration and regional development
  • International migration of talent
  • Regional attraction
  • Emerging economies

ORCID

Toni Ahvenainen

 Junior Research Fellow +358 40 164 6762

MSSc                           

  • Urbanisation
  • Regional development
  • Project communication

ORCID

Sari Vanhanen

 Research Fellow

D. Soc. Sc., adult educator

  • Multi-agency collaboration
  • Two-way integration
  • Professional knowledge and guidance related to ethnic, linguistic and cultural diversity

ORCID

Linda Bäckman

 Research Fellow +358 40 6857413

PhD

  • Multilingualism
  • Language and identity
  • Narrative research
  • Superdiversity and integration
  • New speakers of minority languages
  • Research and social activism
  • International recruitments to the healthcare sector

ORCID

Camilla Marucco Al-Mimar

 Research Fellow +358 406 739 120

PhD

  • Refugeehood and citizenship
  • The production of undocumentedness and illegality
  • Temporalities
  • Feminist and critical geographies
  • Research ethics
  • Co-coordinator with Leonardo Custódio, Activist Research Network

ORCID

Tuire Liimatainen

 Research Fellow

PhD

  • Ethnicity
  • Identity and belonging
  • Diasporas and transnational communities
  • Ethnopolitics and minority activism
  • Sweden-Finns
  • Expatriate Finns
  • Digital media

ORCID

 

 

 

Nina Carlsson

 Research Fellow

PhD

  • Citizenship and naturalization
  • Language and civic knowledge testing
  • National minorities
  • Far right
  • Deportability
  • Borders
  • Critical policy analysis

Kaiju Harinen

 Research Fellow

Phd

• Decolonial research, anti-racist pedagogy, and literary arts
• Representations of intersectional discrimination and migration in literature
• Empirical research on literature and reading
• Development of reading circle methods
• Research on young people’s experiences of multiple crises
• French-language literature
• Minority literatures
• Social influence/activism

ORCID

Nadja Nordling

 Senior Researcher

DAdmin

  • Transformative innovation policy
  • Innovation ecosystems
  • Entrepreneurial ecosystems
  • Sustainable transformations

Elli Heikkilä

 Research director emerita +358 40 069 5452

PhD, Associate professor

  • Immigrants in the labour market
  • Multicultural marriages
  • International students
  • Unaccompanied refugee children
  • Expatriate Finns
  • Internal migration
  • Regional development

ORCID
ResearchGate

Support desk

Kirsi Sainio

 Administrative director +358 40 668 5904

  • Secretary of the Board of Directors and Board of Administration
  • Financial and human resources management
  • Coordinating the production of publications

Mika Orjala

 Research Funding Specialist +358 40 120 4409

MSc

  • Support in applying research funding
  • Grant Writing
  • Support in implementation and reporting of projects
  • Fundraising for the Migration Institute of Finland

 

Jarno Heinilä

 Archivist +358 40 631 3042

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

Katri Kanervo

 Information specialist +358 40 130 4681

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

Krista Mielismäki-Kettunen

 Management assistant +358 40 724 9802

BBA

  • Financial administration
  • IT support
  • Office tasks

Yasmin Samaletdin

 Science communication specialist

M.A. (Ed.)

Coordination, communication and interaction of the SRC funded Mobile Futures project

Visiting researchers and visitors

The Migration Institute of Finland welcomes Visiting Fellows pursuing research in alignment with the Institute’s research profiles. The flexible program allows visiting researchers to affiliate with the Migration Institute for shorter or longer periods, and on-site in Turku or remotely. View current visiting researchers.

Also at the moment

Also at the moment

Ari Räihä, archives trainee

 

Jussi Konttinen, library assistant