Work
current
Research Data Management & Research Data Infrastructure for Gender Studies in Germany
Since 2026, I have been working at the Centre for Gender Relations in Academia (CEWS), based at GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in Cologne, Germany.
With a focus on research data management and research data infrastructure, I am involved in setting up a specialist information service (Fachinformationsdienst – FID) for gender studies. The DFG-funded information service is the first centrally coordinated infrastructure for the provision of scientific information for interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary gender studies in Germany.
The FID will support researchers with target community-specific services – in gender studies as well as in other disciplines that pursue gender-related or intersectional perspectives. It will bundle existing research infrastructures, improve the provision of literature and create target services in the areas of research data management and open access. The focus is on the sustainable support and visibility of gender-related research through a portal that will go online later this year (2026).
In the long term, workshops will also be held in the various fields of activity of the FID. These will address the needs of the research community and invite gender researchers to help shape the services on offer.
previous
Push*Back*Lash – Researching Gender Backlash and Democratic Pushback
I started to work at GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences in 2023. For three years (2023-2025) I have been contributing to the research project Push*Back*Lash. This Horizon Europe-funded project addressed gender backlash and the pushback against democratic values, providing insights into the actors, attitudes, and agendas opposing gender equality, alongside strategies to counteract these challenges.
As part of Push*Back*Lash, I compared citizen perspectives on gender equality over time and across countries and examined how individual gender attitudes evolve throughout the life course, using cross-sectional data and panel surveys.
I also contributed to analyzing the dynamics of attention toward gender equality issues across space, time, and institutional settings. This included investigating how these issues appear on institutional agendas, the actors and strategies involved, the intersections with other issues, and how they move across different venues, regions, and temporal contexts. During the project, I conducted a country case study on gender+ equality politics in Germany (2010–2025) which traces five central gender conflicts – abortion, LGBTQ+ parenthood, gender identity recognition, gender and race studies, and headscarf bans. It illustrates how legal progress in Germany has often depended less on parliamentary will than on court rulings and civil society mobilisation. The case study highlights Germany’s specific pattern of judicialised equality politics, the persistence of conservative veto players, and the growing impact of anti-gender mobilisation.
As part of the Push*Back*Lash project, I have also been involved in knowledge transfer activities, ensuring that our research findings reach beyond academia. In particular, I contributed to the development of toolkits, educational materials, infographics, and cartoons which translate research insights on gender+ politics into accessible formats for civil-society actors and other non-academic audiences.