I am an anthropologist passionate about building bridges between different disciplines and professional fields. My work spans two separate yet mutually enriching fields: the anthropology of migration governance and the anthropology of healthcare and biotechnology. At the intersection of health, migration, genomics, and global development, I explore how people collaborate on shared concerns, from shaping migration policy to driving innovation in biomedical research.
I use ethnographic and transdisciplinary approaches to understand how collaborations really work: how evidence is defined, how responsibilities are negotiated, and how values guide decisions. This interest has taken me from long-term studies of return migration, development, and humanitarianism to a growing focus on healthcare, genomics, and emerging biotechnologies. Across these contexts, I examine how people negotiate definitions, values, and responsibilities in efforts to manage mobility, address illness, organise care, or pursue cure.
My current projects focus on gene-editing risks and promise, Africa–Europe partnerships in HIV cure research, different care logics in childbirth, and boundary‑work in interdisciplinary healthcare teams. Across these topics, I am interested in how, within collaborations, knowledge is produced and how it travels between worlds.
Collaboration is central to my approach. I work closely with scientists, clinicians, policymakers, and NGOs, embedding ethnography into real‑world initiatives. My research has informed European funding schemes for migrant‑led development initiatives and has been cited in policy documents by governments and international organisations.
I am Associate Professor at VU Amsterdam and Research Fellow at the Amsterdam Institute for Global Health and Development (AIGHD). Before this, I held academic positions in Italy (Milan-Bicocca), Senegal (IFAN), the UK (LSE, Goldsmiths), and the Netherlands (Erasmus-ISS), and I worked in international development across Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Outside work, I am a passionate Instagram user, love meeting people from different walks of life, ride a Cinelli race bike, swim and hike in nature.
