University of Mannheim
Prof. Dr. Irena Kogan
Irena Kogan, PI of the PARFORM, is a full professor of comparative sociology at the University of Mannheim. Her research interests include ethnicity and migration, social stratification and transition from school-to-work. In addition to PARFORM, Irena Kogan is a co-PI of the German part of the “Children of Immigrants Longitudinal Survey in Four European Countries” (CILS4EU-DE) (DFG), which data will be used in the PARFORM-Project.
Irena Kogan is a Member of the European Academy of Sociology and a board member of the Transition in Youth Network. She is former associate editor of the European Sociological Review and the Secretary-Treasurer of the European Consortium for Social Research.
Dr. Stefanie Heyne
Dr. Stefanie Heyne is a postdoctoral research associate in the PARFORM Project. Her research interests include gender inequalities in the family and the labor market, migration, and quantitative methods. Within the project, she focuses on partnership preferences of refugees and the established German population.
Stefanie received her doctorate from the University of Mannheim with a thesis on “Culture and female labor force participation in international comparison”. Before joining PARFORM she worked in the project “Young Women’s Labour Market Chances in Muslim Middle Eastern and Northern African Countries” (MZES) as well as a teaching associate at the University of Bamberg and at the LMU Munich.
Jana Kuhlemann
Jana is a PhD student in Sociology at the Center for Doctoral Studies in Social and Behavioral Sciences (CDSS) of the Graduate School of Economic and Social Sciences (GESS, University of Mannheim). She obtained her B.A. and M.A. in Sociology at the University of Mannheim. Her research interests include the fields of social inequality, migration and family sociology. Starting in September 2021, she is working as a researcher in the PARFORM project hosted by the Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES).
Carlos Palomo Lario
Carlos Palomo is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Mannheim/MZES working on the PARFORM project since May 2024. He oversees the formatting of the PARFORM survey questionnaires and their longitudinal analysis.
Carlos earned his PhD in Political and Social Sciences from Pompeu Fabra University in December 2023. His thesis examined the differences between native- and immigrant-origin students in educational expectations and pathways in transitions between stages of the education system. Before joining PARFORM he worked in a research project on the criminal and prison trajectories of aggressors of intimate partner violence.
Muhammad Muhammad
Muhammad is a student assistant who is responsible for translating and reviewing the questionnaire for the quantitative survey of the first and second wave. He will also do research on different subjects related to the project and help administer the project’s databases.
Amir Bonyadi
Amir is a student assistant who is responsible for translating the questionnaire from German to Dari and testing the questionnaire. Amir will also be helping with various data collection tasks and will be assisting with managing the project databases.
Claudia Lemmer
Claudia is a student assistant supporting the team with contacting survey participants. Additionally, she is assisting with the preparation of publications and deliverables. Currently, Claudia is doing her Bachelor’s in Sociology at the University of Mannheim.
Paul Burlon
Paul is a student assistant who is responsible for processing the collected data for further analysis. Paul is also assisting with the programming and testing of survey questions. Currently, Paul is doing his Bachelor’s in Sociology at the University of Mannheim.
Lotte Frey
Lotte is a student assistant supporting the team with contacting survey participants and conducting literature review. Moreover, she is responsible for preprocessing of data and assists with the preparation of publications and deliverables. Currently, Lotte is doing her Bachelor’s in Sociology at the University of Mannheim.
Former Team Members
Dr. Chadi Abdul-Rida
Chadi is a postdoctoral researcher in the PARFORM project. His prior research was at the intersection of family and migration sociology. He wrote his PhD thesis at the University of Chemnitz (Germany) about the role of the family in the partner choice of immigrants and their children. He is also interested in several other research fields related to migration sociology, i.e. ethnic identification, perceived discrimination and immigrants’ well-being.
In PARFORM, Chadi will conduct the in-depth interviews with the Syrian interviewees and with the gained information he will help to further develop the questionnaire for the quantitative interviews. Due to his skills in web development, he will also be responsible for implementing the online survey for the second and third waves.
Grace Caroline Olzinski
Grace is a Master student in Sociology at the University of Mannheim. Grace has practical experience in assisting refugees and young immigrants with their integration into the German labor market and education system. As a native English speaker and a fluent German speaker, Grace will assist in editing and translating various documents (reports, manuscripts, website texts etc.).
Omar Alsawadi
Omar is a student assistant in the PARFORM project. He is responsible for the transcription and translation of the Arabic in-depth audio interviews into German text. He is also helping to test the questionnaire for the quantitative survey and check its translation from German to Arabic.
Michelle Maier
Michelle is a student assistant in the PARFORM project. One of her tasks is to help review the questionnaire for the quantitative survey. She also does literature research on different subjects related to the project such as the measurement of physical attractiveness of the interview participants.
Fatemeh Salimi Khaligh
Fatemeh is a Master student in Sociology at the University of Bamberg, specialising in Migration and Integration Studies. She has many years of practical experience in working with refugees (especially with unaccompanied minors). Fatemeh’s task in the PARFORM project will be to review the Dari translation of the quantitative survey questionnaire. Furthermore, she will test the final questionnaire by conducting interviews with Afghan refugee men whose mother tongue is Dari.
Mohammed Sohrab Osmani
Mohammed studies Mechanical Engineering at the University of Kaiserslautern. Mohammed’s task in the PARFORM project will be to review the Pashto translation of the quantitative survey questionnaire. Furthermore, he will test the final questionnaire by conducting interviews with Afghan refugee men whose mother tongue is Pashto.
Cooperation Partner
Infas
Infas Institute for Applied Social Sciences
