Director

Saara Pellander
Director +358 40 127 1070 saara.pellander@migrationinstitute.fi
D. Soc. Sc., Associate professor
Support desk

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.)

Mika Orjala
Research Funding Specialist +358 40 120 4409 mika.orjala@migrationinstitute.fi
MSc
Support in applying research funding
Support in implementation and reporting of projects
Fundraising for the Migration Institute of Finland

Krista Mielismäki-Kettunen
Management assistant +358 40 724 9802 krista.mielismaki@migrationinstitute.fi
BBA
- Financial administration
- IT support
- Office tasks

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

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

Merja Skaffari-Multala
Anniversary year coordinator +358 40 737 3085 merja.skaffari-multala@migrationinstitute.fi
50th anniversary of the Migration Institute of Finland 2024

Marja Tiilikainen
Senior Research Fellow, Temporary Research Director +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

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

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

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

Magnus Enlund
Project manager, study leave 1.6.-30.11.2023 +358 44 559 2447 magnus.enlund@migrationinstitute.fi
MA, doctoral student
- Finland-Swedish migration
On Mondays and Tuesdays, the following works as the project manager’s deputy from 1 June to 30 November 2023:
Kjell Herberts
+358 50 363 2895

Pekka Kettunen
Visiting Senior Research Fellow pekka.kettunen@migrationinstitute.fi
D. Soc. Sc., Associate professor
- Organisation
- Implementation and evaluation
- Comparative study
- Municipal research
- Integration

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

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

Toni Ahvenainen
Junior Research Fellow +358 40 164 6762 toni.ahvenainen@migrationinstitute.fi
MSSc
- Urbanisation
- Regional development
- Project communication
- EN

Fath E Mubeen
Junior Research Fellow +358 40 1204325 fathe.mubeen@migrationinstitute.fi
MA
- Refugee studies
- Unaccompanied young people
- Muslim women and the labour market
- Art-based methods
- Intersectionality
- Gamification

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

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

Andrei Kalinitchev
Research Fellow +358 40 7577578 andrei.kalinitchev@utu.fi
PhD
Finns and Finno-Ugrics in history
Ingria’s research
Demographic transformation
Migration to big cities
Study of ethnicity

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

Camilla Marucco Al-Mimar
Junior Research Fellow +358 406 739 120 camilla.marucco@migrationinstitute.fi
MA, doctoral candidate
- 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

Ahmed Zaidan
Artist +358 40 685 7561 ahmad.ahmad@migrationinstitute.fi
Bachelor of Arts in Translation (BA), University of Mosul
- Poetry
- Creative writing
- Refugeehood

Rewan Kakil
Artist +358 40 704 9226 rewankakil.ahmed@migrationinstitute.fi
Visual artist
- Photography
- Videography
- Directing
- Musician
- Video editing

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

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

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

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
Research
Also at the moment

Also at the moment
Podcast journalist Nadja Mikkonen, 1.8.2023-31.12.2023
nadja.mikkonen
@migrationinstitute.fi
tel. 040 672 5132
Specialist Olena Temnikova, 1.8.2022-31.10.2023
olena.temnikova
@migrationinstitute.fi
Intern Johanna Virtanen 25.9.2023-24.12.2023
johanna.virtanen
@migrationinstitute.fi
Oliver Kuukauppi 9.10.2023 – 8.4.2024
oliver.kuukauppi
@migrationinstitute.fi
M.Soc.Sc. Marko Alivuotila 3.10.2022-12.2.2024
marko.alivuotila
@migrationinstitute.fi
Research assistant Gabriel Olegario 1.10.2022-30.11.2023
gabriel.olegario
@migrationinstitute.fi