Research Team

Carla Huisman, PhD

Carla Huisman is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam, Department of Human Geography, Planning and International Development Studies in the Research Group Urban Geographies.

Carla obtained her PhD from the University of Groningen with her thesis "Insecure Tenure: The precarisation of rental housing in the Netherlands". Afterwards, Carla worked at the Housing Management Chair at the Department of Management in the Built Environment, at the Technical University Delft as part of the Co-Lab research group. She also conducted a NWA Idea Generator research dedicated to effects of spatial clustering and spatial isolation on the networks of refugees.

Besides the sociological research on social-spatial inequality and the precarisation of the Dutch rental market, Carla is chairwoman of the grassroots, volunteer-driven housing association Woningbouwvereniging Soweto.

Prof. Justus Uitermark, PhD

Justus Uitermark is Professor of Urban Geography and the Academic Director of the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research. To study how we create urban environments and those environments shape us, he draws upon different perspectives, ranging from human ecology and historical sociology to various strands of critical theory. His lines of research include: Reflexive computational social science, Cities and social movements and Urban policy and spatial inequality.

Carme Arcarazo, MA

Carme is researcher and project technician at IDRA and holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics and Political Science from the University of Amsterdam (2017) and Master in Urban Studies, UAB (2023), with a specialization in urban political economy, housing and public policies.

She has been project coordinator at the Laboratorio para la Ciudad – the experimental think tank of the Government of Mexico City – and at the public innovation laboratory Coboi lab. She has experience as an independent consultant on urban public policy. He has also designed political advocacy strategies for the protection of defenders of land and territory at risk in Mexico (PBI).

Rubén Martínez Moreno, PhD

Rubén Martínez is Director of the Area of Urbanism and Ecological Transition at IDRA. He obtained a PhD in Public Policy and Social Transformation from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in 2018, and a Master in Political Science in 2014 from the same university. For a decade he conducted research on the economy of culture and on social innovation practices in the face of the ecosocial crisis in Europe and Latin America. He published several academic articles on this subject. He has taught at undergraduate, master's and doctoral programmes at BAU, UAB, UOC and other academic institutions. He is currently researching the relationships between property regimes, environmentalism and public planning.

Jaime Palomera Zaidel, PhD

Jaime Palomera is Director of the Housing and City Area at the research institute IDRA. Jaime both as an anthropolical researcher and university teacher, is guided by the principle that housing is a right and not a financial asset, that cities are for living and not for speculation. He obtained a PhD from the University of Barcelona (2013), a Master's degree from the University of London (2007), and was Visiting Fellow at the Graduate Center in New York (2009) and the EHESS in Paris (2010). He has published in internationally renowned scientific journals on challenges such as financialization, urban inequality, the crisis of the homeowners' society and the tenant generation. His work on the causes and effects of the great mortgage crisis is considered one of the most relevant in 40 years (IJURR). Connected to the research, he actively participates in the creation of tools to democratize access to housing and promote social justice, such as IDRA itself and the Sindicat de Llogateres.

Byeongsun Ahn, PhD

Byeongsun Ahn is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Sociology, University of Vienna and affiliated with the Research Platform: The Challenges of Urban Future at the same university. Before finishing his doctoral degree in sociology at University of Vienna, he received his BA. in political science from the same university in 2014, and his MSc. in sociology from University of Amsterdam in 2015. Building on his thesis "Living in a 'just' City: citizen participation and social interaction in Vienna's regenerating neighborhoods", his research interests include citizen participation, governance rescaling, path dependence, program evaluation, and social justice.

Univ.-Prof. Yuri Kazepov, PhD

Yuri Kazepov is a Professor of Urban Sociology at the Department of Sociology at the Faculty of Social Sciences (University of Vienna). His research interests address the territorial dimension of social policies in a comparative perspective, multilevel governance arrangements, social and environmental sustainability, school-to-work transitions. On these topics he carried out extensive research at European level in different policy domains.  For his publications see the u:cris portal. He served as president of the Research Committee 21 on Urban and Regional Studies of the International Sociological Association (2010-2014), was a founding board member of ESPAnet Europe, the Network for European Social Policy Analysis (2002-2008) and founded and co-chaired ESPAnet Italy (2009-2011) and co-founded ESPAnet Austria (2016).

Natalie Trell, BA

Natalie Trell is a master student at the Department of Sociology, University of Vienna, writing her thesis on digitalization in Viennese Schools. She currently works as a researcher assistant at the Research Platform: The Challenges of Urban Future at the same university. Her research interests include social inequality, education, sustainability, and urban sociology.