Lecturers

Dr Lakshmi Balachandran Nair is an Assistant Professor (Research) at the Department of Business and Management at LUISS Guido Carli University. Lakshmi’s work mainly focuses on the rigour, transparency, ethics, and impact of qualitative management research. Her other research interests include business ethics (ethical dilemmas in business, methodology in business ethics etc.). Her articles are published in various academic journals (Organizational Research Methods, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Business Research, Journal of Management Inquiry, Research Synthesis Methods, Scientometrics, Management, Qualitative Research in Psychology, to name a few). Lakshmi has also published case studies (with Sage Research Methods Cases and Sage Business Cases), book chapters (with Academic Publishing International), and a book (with Financial Times Press).

His main research focus is on sustainable business-society relations. Beyond this, he also teaches and publishes on qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research. He chairs the World Sustainability Forum and is president of the Swiss Academic Society for Environmental Research and Ecology.

He is professor of sociology at the Universities of Cologne and Zurich. He was president of the European Survey Research Association (ESRA) between 2015 and 2017.

His research interests concentrate on structural equation modeling especially applied to cross-cultural and longitudinal survey data. In his research he analyzes human values and attitudes toward immigrants or other minorities.

Jolanta Drzewiecka (PhD, Arizona State University, USA) researches discursive constructions of cultural, racial, and national differences and identities to advance a critical intercultural communication framework. She focuses on two areas: immigrant identity and public memories. In the first, she examines how immigrant identities are negotiated and represented in personal and media narratives. Here, she develops a theory as to how immigrants are racially incorporated through intercultural translation in ways that sustain structures of inequality. The latter area explores how public memories are shaped by and shape nationalism. She is particularly interested in how memories of ethnic violence are discursively disabled and blocked and victims rendered unrecognisable to protect fictions of the national self. Here, she combines discourse and rhetorical analyses with psychoanalytic theories.

She has published her research in journals such Communication Theory, Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, Media Studies in Communication, and Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies.

He is a Full Professor of Marketing at the Institute of Marketing and Communication Management (IMCA) at Università della Svizzera italiana (USI).

Among other things his competence areas are: Branding, Buyer-supplier Relationship, Customer Value, Hospitality and Tourism Marketing Management, Innovation management, Marketing, Marketing Research Methodologies, Onerous Consumption, Public Administration, Supplier Relationships, Sustainable Resource Utilisation.

He is a lecturer (Maître assistant Ambizione) in sociology at the University of Lausanne where he conducts a research project financed by an Ambizione grant of the Swiss National Science Foundation. The project estimates the effects of demographic behavior on the intergenerational transmission of advantage.

He is also an associate professor (docent) at the Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI), Stockholm University.

In the past, he worked at Nuffield College, University of Oxford and received my PhD in Political and Social Sciences from the European University Institute (EUI) in 2015.

His research interests are in the fields of child development, social stratification, and social demography. A major aim of his research is to understand the intergenerational transmission of advantage.

Peter Gruber has a PhD in Physics from TU Wien and a PhD in Finance from the Università della Svizzera italiana. He has joined USI in 2008. His research interests include the economics of volatility, econometrics with non-standard data sets and high performance computing. Dr. Gruber teaches numerical methods with MATLAB and R at USI and in St. Gallen.

He is currently the Director of the Behavioural and Data Science MSc and the Bridges Doctoral Training Centre in Mathematical and Social Sciences, both of which aim to provide and develop quantitative approaches to data in the social sciences. He teaches courses in quantitative approaches to behavioural science, language, and computational social sciences. His publications include work in psychology, communications, education, and economics, and focus on issues associated with large-scale analysis of language.

Eugène Horber is professor emeritus of methodology at the Department of Political Science and International relations, University of Geneva, as well as affiliated researcher at FORS. He holds a PhD degree in Political Science and has taught social science methodology (both quantitative and qualitative), applied computer science, and statistics at the University of Geneva.

He is the director of the Swiss Summer School (Social Science Methodology); main teaching activities in the past include the Essex Summer School, the Carcassonne Summer School, the PRESTA programme (EU programme for South America), Eurostat/TES, ENSAE (Paris) and ENSAI (Rennes).

His research interests and publications are in the area of statistical methodology (data exploration, visual data analysis), survey research and aggregate data analysis, as well as applied computer science (didactic software, hypertext) and computer-assisted qualitative data analysis. He is the author of a software package for exploratory data analysis.

Sebastian Kernbach has a PhD in Communication Science in which he focused on Visual Collaborative Knowledge Work in knowledge-intense collaboration in Professional Services Firms and Design Thinking. He is with the University of St. Gallen where he works as project manager, research associate, and instructor at the Institute of Media and Communications Management.

His research focuses on the role of visual thinking in interpersonal interactions. He is particularly interested in enhancing interactions between consultants and clients through visualization. In addition he provides workshops for professionals, researchers and lecturers on the usefulness of visual thinking.

Prior to his research he worked as consultant for Interbrand, as Head of Branding and Communication of a Swiss startup and as Manager for Marketing and Communication for XEROX. He studied Business Administration and Communication in Breda, Düsseldorf, Copenhagen, Lugano and St. Gallen. His latest book covers visual thinking, storytelling and other elements as part of creativity and productivity in research which was published in 2019 by Cambridge University Press. 

She is currently co-investigator for the project “Wealth distribution in Switzerland and Germany: Evidence from Survey Data” financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation and the German Research Foundation.

She has research experience in political science, sociology and economics, mainly using panel data and she is involved in different areas of research: income inequality in Switzerland, stability of voting behaviour (PhD), life satisfaction, labour supply decisions and has implemented a simulation of taxes for the SHP.

He is currently titular professor at the Faculty of Communication, Culture and Society and rector delegate per research analysis at Università della Svizzera italiana.

His research interest include: Governance and organizational structures of higher education institutions, Institutional theory, particularly institutional logics approaches and hybrid organizations, Development of data infrastructure for S&T studies, Diversity and characterization of higher education systems, Comparative analysis of national reasearch policies and funding systems, Indicators to characterize research funding systems and higher education institutions

He is lecturer in survey methodology and survey research at the Institute of Sociology at the University of Berne and at the Swiss Summer School in Lugano, focussing on methods of panel data analysis.

He published more than 25 papers about survey data quality issues with a focus on nonresponse and attrition in panel surveys. He also wrote articles on social inequality and representativity of minorities in surveys.

Patrick A. Mello is Visiting Scholar at the Willy Brandt School of Public Policy at the University of Erfurt, where he previously served as Interim Franz Haniel Professor for Public Policy. He holds a PhD in Political Science from Humboldt University Berlin and a Habilitation in Political Science from the TUM School of Governance at the Technical University of Munich. His research focuses on the domestic politics of international security, foreign policy analysis, and comparative research methods. For his book Democratic Participation in Armed Conflict (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) Mello received the German Political Science Association’s dissertation award. His work has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as the European Journal of International Relations, West European Politics, Foreign Policy Analysis, British Journal of Politics and International Relations, and Contemporary Security Policy. This course is based on Mello’s forthcoming textbook Qualitative Comparative Analysis: Research Design and Application (Georgetown University Press).

She is a Professor in Sociology at the University of Lausanne and a Fellow & Director of Studies in Human, Social, and Political Sciences at the Jesus College, University of Cambridge.

Véronique Mottier's research and teaching interests include Social and political theory, Gender, sexuality, and the state, Modernity, race, and identity politics, Welfare states and social exclusion, Coerced sterilisation policies and child removal programs in the Western world, Interpretative research methods, discourse, and narrative analysis.

Karen O'Reilly is Freelance Researcher and Training Provider, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Loughborough University, and Co-Investigator on the www.BrexitBritsAbroad.org project at Goldsmiths, University of London. She has taught ethnographic and qualitative methods for almost 30 years, including the Essex Summer School, the Swiss Summer School in Social Science Methods, in Lugano; at universities in the UK, Germany, Norway, and Hong Kong. Her experience also includes being a Member of the Advisory Board of the NCRM biannual Research Methods Festival 2011-2012; and a member of the ESRC Peer Review College 2012 – 2016. Karen is a highly experienced ethnographer and qualitative researcher whose many publications include two widely cited books on ethnography: Ethnographic Methods (Routledge, 2nd ed. 2012) and Key Concepts in Ethnography (Sage, 2009). Karen provides short courses for the Social Research Association on a regular basis, as well as bespoke training in qualitative research methods. She has delivered training for  (among others) UK Parliament, Department of Work and Pensions, charities, private research organisations, HMRC, the UK Home Office, and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary.

Andrea Rocci is Full Professor and Director of the Institute of Argumentation, Linguistics and Semiotics at the Università della Svizzera italiana (Lugano). He is also Director of the Master programme in Financial Communication offered jointly by the faculties of Economics and Communication Sciences at the same university. He has published extensively in the fields of argumentation, pragmatics, semantics and discourse analysis. He is co-author (with Marcel Danesi) of a textbook on Global linguistics. He has directed / is directing several projects on argumentation in the contexts of journalism, corporate communication and financial communication funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).

Robin Samuel is an Associate Professor at the University of Luxembourg (Department of Social Sciences) and Head of the Centre for Childhood and Youth Research. Previously, he worked as a guest researcher at the University of Bern (Institute of Sociology) and a lecturer at the University of Basel (Social Research and Methodology Group). From 2012 to 2014, he was a visiting scholar at the University of Cambridge (Department of Sociology) and at Stanford University (Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality), as well as an Honorary Fellow at the University of Edinburgh (School of Social and Political Science, 2013 to 2017). Robin has taught various courses at the universities of Basel, Bern, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Johannesburg, Luxembourg, and Pretoria.

Peter Schmidt is Professor emeritus of social science methodology at the University of Giessen.

His research concentrates on foundations and applications of generalized latent variable models, especially structural equation models. Applications include cross-country, repeated cross-sections, and panel data. The substantive topics deal with values, attitudes toward minorities, national identity and innovation and the reasoned action approach. He is together with A. Heath, E. Green, E. Davidov and A. Ramos member of the Question Design Team for the immigration module of the ESS 2014.

He is professor of political methodology at the University of Zurich. His methodological interests span choice models, machine learning, measurement, and multilevel analysis. His substantive interests cover voting behavior and digital democracy, in particular, online deliberative processes. Originally hailing from The Netherlands, he previously taught at Carnegie Mellon University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of Bern. He has published extensively and is co-author of the award-winning book The Ambivalent Partisan (OUP 2012).

Dr Lukasz Walasek is an associate professor at the Department of Psychology, University of Warwick, UK. He completed PhD and MSc in Psychology at the University of Essex and a BSc in Psychosocial Sciences at the University of East Anglia. Dr Walasek is a deputy PI on the Midlands Engine project, which aims to improve mental health and productivity in the Midlands region of the UK. He is also a Co-lead of the Behavioural Brain & Society Global Research Priorities, promoting behavioural science research and collaborations between Warwick university, government, and industry.

In his research, Dr Walasek applies insights from data science to study how people make everyday decisions and judgments. His current research interests include context effects, food choice, and natural language processing.