team members

Halla Holmarsdottir

Professor

Her research experience includes ethnographic fieldwork with children and young people, scientific coordination and collaboration in cross-national and interdisciplinary research teams. In her work, she draws on interdisciplinary approaches and includes research on marginalization in education, social justice, gender, education and youth. This work has taken a central focus in looking at the way in which education and more specifically, teacher education can contribute to providing competencies for democratic participation.

• ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Halla_Holmarsdottir
• https://figshare.com/authors/Halla_Holmarsdottir/9044213
• ORCID number: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1271-1622

Christer Hyggen

Research Professor

Christer Hyggen is a Sociologist (PhD) and a senior researcher at NOVA working in the field of youth research. In his work he has focused on transitions from youth to adulthood and processes of marginalization.

Dawn Heskestad

Adviser

Dawn Heskestad is the Project Manager of DigiGen.

Greta Björk Gudmundsdottir

Professor at the Department of Teacher Education and School Research, University of Oslo

Gudmundsdottir’s work focuses on ICT in teaching and learning. Her main research area is digital competence of student teachers, students and teachers with emphasis on digital responsibility, digital divide and ICT self-efficacy. She is currently the project leader for the ICILS2023 in Norway and doing research on teachers’ readiness in times of Covid-19.

• https://www.uv.uio.no/ils/english/people/aca/gretag/index.html
• ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Greta_Gudmundsdottir

Tove Lafton

Position

Tove has her PHD in how technology affect the pedagogical working and thinking in early years. Her main research interests are workbased student learning, digital literacy in early years, pedagogical leadership and reflection as a tool for learning and development.

Louise Mifsud

Professor

Mifsud works at the Faculty of Teacher Education and International Studies at Oslo Metropolitan University, with research and teaching interests in the areas of technology-enhanced learning. Along with Irish, Spanish and Maltese colleagues, she is currently involved in an ERASMUS+ project exploring digital competence in teacher education. Her publications have mainly focused on adoption and adaption of ICT in schools and teacher education.

• ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Louise_Mifsud

Mikkel Bertram Rustad

Assistant Professor

Mikkel Rustad works at the Faculty of Teacher Education and International Studies at Oslo Metropolitan University, teaching and researching in the field of technology-enhanced learning. His research focuses on adoption and adaption of ICT in schools and teacher education, with a focus on digital game-based learning.

Idunn Seland

Associate professor, Faculty of teacher education and internationalisation and senior researcher NOVA, Oslo Metropolitan University

Idunn Seland (Ph.D. in sociology, M.A. in political science). Seland is currently employed at the school leadership program at the Faculty of teacher education and the department of youth research at NOVA, Oslo Metropolitan University. Seland is the leader of work package 7 in DigiGen.

Janniche Elisabeth Broch Wilhelmsen

PhD fellow

Former first-grade teacher now researching digital family life with DigiGen. Employed at Oslo Metropolitan University at the Department of Early Childhood Education. Passionate about including the child’s perspective in the research field.

Trygve Hognerud Berget

Research Assistant

Trygve Hognerud Berget is currently finalizing his master’s degree in teacher education from Oslo Metropolitan University, specializing in technology enhanced pedagogy. In his sixth semester he was an exchange student at Tribhuvan University in Kathmandu, Nepal, where he worked as a teacher at one of the local schools. He is presently working with DigiGen as a research assistant.

Gabriella Petronella van den Bosch

Research Assistant

Gabriella Petronella van den Bosch is currently finalizing her Master degree in Teacher Education from Oslo Metropolitan University, specializing in Mathematics with a mainly focus on students with great learning potential. She is presently working with DigiGen as a research assistant.

Dimitris Parsanoglou

Senior Researcher at Panteion University

Dimitris Parsanoglou holds a DEA and a PhD in Sociology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris. He has participated in several national and European research projects and has extensively published on history and sociology of migration, on employment, youth, urban space and gender.

Maria Symeonaki

Associate Professor of Social Statistics, Director of the Social Statistics and Data Analysis Laboratory, Department of Social Policy, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences

Maria Symeonaki has studied Mathematics and holds a PhD in the field of Statistics and Operations Research. She has participated and/or coordinated a number of scientific and developmental EU and national projects. Her scientific interests and published work concern statistical analysis and modeling with emphasis on vulnerable groups.

Giorgos Stamou

Associate Professor of Artificial Intelligence, National Technical University of Athens

Giorgos Stamou is an Associate Professor of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, NTUA, Athens. His research interests include among others description logics, ontologies, semantic annotation and semantic interoperability. He has more than 140 papers published papers in scientific Journals.

Giorgos Filandrianos

PhD Candidate, AILS Laboratory, National Technical University of Athens

George Filandrianos graduated from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in 2019. Since then, he is a Ph.D Candidate at the AILS Laboratory. His research interests include Algorithms, Artificial Intelligent, Machine Learning, Pattern Recognition and Computer Vision.

Aggeliki Kazani

Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Social Policy, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences

Aggeliki Kazani has studied Social Policy and holds a PhD in the field of Social Statistics. She has collaborated with various social research centers. Her scientific interests and published work concern statistical analysis with emphasis in scale attitudes, labour market, gender, youth and child well-being.

Ilias Marmaras

Game developer, Researcher

Ilias Marmaras designs and directs media arts projects, videogames and documentaries and writes on topics concerning media theory.

Myrto Pnevmatikaki

University student

Myrto Pnevmatikaki is a Thessaloniki based artist and theater student, member of Kinaisthisi dance theater and En Dynamei theater ensable, ballet and contemporary dancer.

Stewart Ziff

New media theorist, practitioner and educator

Stewart Ziff works at the intersection of Art & Technology. He has held appointments in academia and industry, most recently as Associate Professor of New Media at Georgia State University in Atlanta and previously at Parsons School of Design in New York, as systems architect for the the new Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History and as technical director of the DTV R&D lab at MTV.

Athina Karatzogianni

Professor in Media and Communication

Athina cannot make her mind up whether she is more interested in the empirical research or the theoretical problems emerging from ICT use by social movements, protest, and insurgency groups.

• https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/media/people/dr-athina-karatzogianni

Alberto Cossu

Lecturer in Media & Communication

Alberto Cossu is a sociologist and media scholar whose transdisciplinary research investigates the transformation of creative work. Deploying a methodology that combines qualitative analysis with big data, he conducts research on the processes of political engagement of artists and creative workers; the evolutions of collaborative work and digital ecosystems in both western and non-western context.

Michael Dunning

Lecturer in Sociology

Michael Dunning is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Leicester and holds a PhD from Brunel University. His main research interests include (among other areas) figurational sociology, and specifically the processes and relationships that contribute to the development of ‘terrorism’, ‘radicalisation’ and ‘extremism’.

Bernhard Forchtner

Associate Professsor

Bernhard Forchtner currently works on far-right activism, environmental communication and in the field of critical discourse studies, with a particular interest in the narrative constitution of the social. His recent publications include the edited volume The Far Right and the Environment (Routledge, 2019).

Matthew Hart

Lecturer in Digital Sociology

Matt’s background is in digital sociology, having studied, researched, and published in the intersecting areas of youth, intimacy, risk, and digital and social media since 2012. He is primarily interested in young people’s intimate social media practices – particularly in terms of the benefits young people are able to leverage through voluntarily negotiating with ‘risk’ as part of their everyday online practices.

Diane Thembekile Levine

Deputy Director, Dr

Di is Deputy Director of the Leicester Institute for Advanced Studies, following a career as a teacher, programme manager and as a senior manager in civil/public service. Di has a particular interest in interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the role technology can (and cannot) play in helping children and adolescents engage in the worlds around them, and in developing their resilience pathways.

• https://twitter.com/leicsias

Jacob Matthews

Professor of Communication Science

Jacob’s current work focuses on ideological production and leadership in political, social and cultural protest movements. He draws on critical theory and political economy of culture and communication. His previous research has contributed to the socio-economics of the internet, analysis of the star system and music industry.

Christian Morgner

Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Creative Industries (University of Sheffield prev. University of Leicester)

Christian is social scientist working on a grand sociological theories at the intersection of sociology, communication and philosophy. His work draws not only on theoretical resources, but is grounded in rich empirical work at a global scale. In his most recent research, he focuses on notions of practices and networks of meaning-making.

Olaf Kapella

Senior Researcher and Research Coordinator

Olaf Kapella is senior researcher and research coordinator at the Austrian Institute for Family Studies at the University of Vienna. His main research areas are evaluation studies on family policy and children rights and child welfare, the development and evaluation of sexuality education programs and violence research. Besides his academic work, he is also working as a therapist with the focus on young people and men. He is trainer in several post gradual training courses on health and sexuality education and sexuality counselling, national and international.

He leads the work of the Austrian Institute for Family Studies at the University Vienna within the DigiGen project and is work package leader of WP 3 of the DigiGen project.

Helena Hornung

Staff Researcher (M.A.)

Helena Hornung is a researcher at the Austrian Institute for Family Studies at the University of Vienna. Her transdisciplinary background is grounded in cultural anthropology, European ethnology and development studies. She is currently involved in evaluating youth participation in child services in Austria and assists the DigiGen team in researching young people’s use of digital technologies in their leisure time.

Eva-Maria Schmidt

Post-doc Researcher

Eva-Maria Schmidt works as a sociologist and anthropologist at the Austrian Institute for Family Studies and the Department of Sociology, University of Vienna. She is particularly experienced in qualitative multi-perspective approaches on the transition to parenthood. Her research focuses on analyzing parents’ arrangements of combining paid work and family work and constructions of gendered parental responsibilities. Eva-Maria is a member and country expert in the International Leave Policies & Research Network. Her work in the DigiGen project comprises conducting and analyzing the qualitative data.

Susanne Vogl

Post-doc Researcher

Susanne Vogl is an expert in social science research methodology with extensive experience with a wide range methods of data collection and analysis. She has worked extensively on mode and age effect in interviews with children. The goal of her research is to generally advance the field of research methodology and more specifically create awareness for peculiarities of target groups and methods.

Substantive fields of research include the deviant behaviour, young people, family, and the life course.

Susanne Vogl is member in WP3 within the DigiGen Project.

Sara Ayllón

Associate Professor

Sara Ayllon is an Associate Professor at the Department of Economics at the Universitat de Girona (Spain). She obtained her PhD at the Applied Economics Department at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) in 2009. Previously, she graduated from a MSc in European Social Policy at the London School of Economics and she holds a BSc in Economics and another one in Journalism at UAB. Her research focuses on the Economics of Poverty and Inequality, Economics of the Family, Labour Economics, Health Economics and Applied Microeconometrics.

• http://www.saraayllon.eu/

Samuel Lado

Research assistant, Department of Economics, Universitat de Girona

Samuel Lado holds two bachelor’s degrees, one in Economics and the other one in Business Administration and Management from the University of Girona. Currently he is pursuing a master’s degree in Economic Analysis at the Open University of Catalonia, while he is working as a research assistant and adjunct lecturer in the Department of Economics at the University of Girona.

Birgit Eickelmann

Prof. Dr.

Birgit Eickelmann is Professor for Educational Science at Paderborn University. Among other projects and activities (www.upb.de/eickelmann), she is the scientific director of the International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) for Germany and head of Working Package 5 “ICT in/and Education” in the H2020 DigiGen project. Her research interests focus on the development of schools and school systems in the course of digitalization.

Kerstin Drossel

PD Dr.

KerstinDrossel is working as a postdoctoral research assistant of Prof. Birgit Eickelmann at Paderborn University. Among other projects (www.upb.de/drossel), she is the Co-Leader of Working Package 2 “Mapping digital transformations across Europe” in the H2020 DigiGen project. Her research interests include teacher professionalization and school development in the age of digitalization.

Gianna Casamassima

M.Ed.

Gianna Casamassima works as a research assistant at the department of ‘School Education’ of Prof. Dr. Birgit Eickelmann at Paderborn University. Her research interests focus on digitalisation processes in education related to the associated developments and changes in schools.

Amelie Labusch

M.A.

Amelie Labusch works as a research assistant at the department of ‘School Education’ of Prof. Dr. Birgit Eickelmann at Paderborn University. Her research interests focus on computational thinking and digitalisation processes in education related to the associated developments and changes in schools.

Sonja Maria Roth

Researcher, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work

Professor Maria Roth, PhD. is one of the founders of the Social Work Program and of the Master Programme in Children’s Rights in Babes-Bolyai University, Cluj, Romania. As a practitioner psychologist she has worked with children in schools, hospitals and orphanages. She has benefitted of a Fulbright scholarship in UNC Chapel Hill, US, and participated in several European Erasmus exchanges. Along the 30 years of academic career, she did research and published in Romanian, Hungarian, and in English in the area of developmental psychology, child well-being, adverse childhood experiences, human rights, vulnerable (Roma) population and youth participation. She has developed courses at bachelor, and doctoral level in Developmental Psychology, Children’s rights; Child protection; Program and service evaluation; Social Work Methods; Ethics in research with children; and Comparative Research.

• https://socasis.ubbcluj.ro/staff/maria-roth/

Monica Barbovschi

Consultant

Monica Barbovschi, Ph.D, is a researcher with the Norwegian team in the EU Kids Online network at the University of Oslo, Department of Media and Communication (position funded by the Ministry of Justice, Norway). She also acts as a consultant for the Romanian team at the Babeș-Bolyai University, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work for the work package on digital technologies in education in the DigiGen project. Her research interests are related to young people’s use of digital technologies (including gendered aspects, such as sexting and sexualised cyber-aggression).

Paul Teodor Hărăguş

Researcher, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work

Paul-Teodor Hărăguș is the Dean of the Faculty of Sociology and Social Work and an associate professor at the Department of Social Work. He is a sociologist (completing his PhD in Sociology with the title “Time use and the allocation of household labour in Romanian family” in 2008). He is interested in research topics in the field of family studies, population, social policies and youth issues. With an experience of over 18 years in teaching, he teaches courses in Introduction to Sociology, Childhood Sociology, Evaluation of Programs and Social Policies, Advanced Statistics, Design and Analysis of Social Databases.

• https://socasis.ubbcluj.ro/staff/teodor-paul-haragus/

Cosmin Ghețău

Research Assistant, Faculty of Sociology and Social Work

Ghetau Cosmin is pursuing a PhD. in the field of Sociology. In his thesis he is approaching friendship relationships formed through video games. Being passionate about the effects of technology on friendship development, he is focusing on video games, since they might have a high influence on the development of friendships. In addition to working on his thesis, he is currently writing and publishing articles investigating motivation for gaming and social capital.

Merike Sisask

Professor of Social Health Care

Professor of Social Health Care at Tallinn University, School of Governance, Law and Society (SOGOLAS) and Board Member of the Estonian-Swedish Mental Health and Suicidology Institute (ERSI). Research interests: public health view on suicidality and mental health; interventions for suicide prevention; (social) media and suicide; digital transformation and well-being.

Katrin Tiidenberg

Professor of Participatory Culture

Professor of Participatory Culture at Tallinn University, Baltic Film, Media and Arts School and on the Executive Board of the Association of Internet Researchers. Author of multiple books on social media. Research interests include social media, sexual practices, visual culture, participatory practices, norms and digital research methods and ethics.

Gertha Teidla-Kunitsõn

Junior Researcher and Lecturer, PhD Student

Junior lecturer in the field of adult education in the School of Educational Sciences at Tallinn University and junior researchers in the School of Governance, Law and Society (SOGOLAS). Research interests: adult education, youth participation, ICT usage in education, forum theatre.

Karmen Toros

Professor of Social Work

Social Work Professor at the School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University. She is one of the establisher of the Centre for Advanced Research on Integrity, Rights and Inclusion of the Child (CIRIC). Research interests: assessment of children in need, child and family participation in child protection.

• https://care-iric.org/

Ingrid Sindi

Lecturer, PhD Student

Social Work Lecturer (related with child protection courses) at the School of Governance, Law and Society, Tallinn University. Research interests: substitute /residential care of children, child agency, social participation and (identity) development within residential care, child-centred and citizenship practices, narrative and discursive practices approach in research.

• https://care-iric.org/

Elizabeth Gosme

Director

Elizabeth Gosme, Director of COFACE Families Europe and mother of two digital citizens (6 and 10). Active in the EU political arena. A true music lover. Firm believer in the six core values of COFACE to build inclusive societies: social inclusion, intergenerational solidarity, human rights, non-discrimination, empowerment, and equal opportunities.

Florian Charron

Senior Project and Finance Manager

Florian Charron has been managing and coordinating under the supervision of the director the overall finances and several projects during the last 12 years, under the framework of the following EU programmes : PROGRESS / EaSI, DAPHNE III, FLABEL, Horizon2020, Erasmus+, etc.

Martin Schmalzried

Senior Policy and Advocacy Manager

Martin Schmalzried holds a Master’s Degree from the ULB (Brussels) in Political Science and is a licensed sociology teacher in upper secondary education. He has been working at COFACE as a Senior Policy and Advocacy Officer for over nine years. He was responsible for the content of the #DeleteCyberbullying project and was involved in a number of European Projects as external expert including POSCON, ENABLE and SIP-BENCH II and III. He follows the DG CNECT Alliance to better protect minors online and is an expert to the Council of Europe on Digital Citizenship Education.

Holly Shorey

DigiGen Project and Advocacy Officer

Holly Shorey is studying for an LLM in Human Rights Law at the University of Kent, Brussels School of International Studies alongside her role at COFACE Families Europe. She has a background in children’s rights and participation and as a result particularly keen to engage children and young people in the DigiGen project.

Shola Olabode

Research Fellow

Shola’s research to date focuses on the politics of digital media, with a particular interest in ICT and civic participation in Sub-Saharan countries (i.e. elections and disinformation). Shola has published on Nigeria’s political movements and their use of ICTs.