International Scientific Advisory Board

The International Scientific Advisory Board of the ViDSS (SAB) advises the speaker and the steering committee on the profile and organisational development of the Doctoral School and the doctoral programme in Social Sciences at the University of Vienna.

Manuela Bojadžijev

Professor at the Institute for European Ethnology at Humboldt-Universität of Berlin

Manuela Bojadžijev is Vice Dean for Internationalisation at the Faculty of Humanities, Humboldt University of Berlin; Deputy Managing Director at the Institute for European Ethnology; and Director of the Department of Migration in Global Perspective at the Berlin Institute for Migration Research (BIM). She is also a permanent fellow at the Institut für Sozialforschung in Frankfurt and at the Centre for Social Critique at Humboldt University. In 2025, Manuela Bojadžijev was a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (IWM) in Vienna. She is also a member of the Transit Asia Research Network (TARN). Between 2017 and 2021, she has co-curated the broad-based oral history project, the digital Archive of Refuge.

Manuela Bojadžijev specialises in the study of globalised and digital cultures, as well as migration, from a global perspective. She also studies the contemporary transformation of racism. As well as the conceptual, methodological and epistemological questions of migration research, she is interested in ‘contestations over migration’ within migration societies and how social change is narrated, experienced and enacted through representations of migration and displacement.

David Madden

Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science

David Madden is an urban sociologist and housing researcher. He is Associate Professor of Sociology and Director of the Cities Programme at the London School of Economics. His work seeks to understand how urban and residential space is shaped by political-economic processes and how cities and housing systems might become resources for political-economic change.

David Madden is co-author of the book In Defence of Housing (2016; second edition 2024). He serves on the editorial board of the journal CITY: Analysis of urban change, theory, action. At LSE, he teaches on the undergraduate, masters and doctoral levels and has also taught in the summer school and doctoral programme of the Research Center for New Social Housing at TU Wien.

Sofie Marien

Associate Professor in Political Science at the University of Leuven

Sofie Marien holds a PhD in Social Sciences (2011) from the University of Leuven. Before joining the political science faculty in Leuven, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Amsterdam.

Sofie Marien’s research interests are focused on democratic innovations, digital democracy, political behavior, political psychology, political communication and comparative politics. She was awarded an ERC Starting Grant “Meeting Great Expectations Through Democratic Innovations” to study the effect of participatory and deliberative processes on perceptions of legitimacy.

Linsey McGoey

Professor of sociology at the University of Essex

Linsey McGoey works across social theory, economic sociology and the epistemology of knowledge and ignorance. She’s a public sociologist who has written for a wide audience at venues such as the Guardian and New York Times.

Linsey McGoey is the author of No Such Thing as a Free Gift (Verso), The Unknowers: How Strategic Ignorance Rules the World (Bloomsbury), co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Ignorance Studies, and book series editor of Routledge Research in Ignorance Studies. She’s on the core editorial board of Economy and Society.

Jessica Taylor Piotrowski

Associate Professor in the Amsterdam School of Communication Research, University of Amsterdam

Jessica Taylor Piotrowski serves as the director of the Graduate School of Communication, the director of the Faculty’s Teaching & Learning Centre, and the director of the Center for research on Children, Adolescents, & the Media. Her scholarly and educational work focuses on how (young) users process media and the role of individual differences in this process, with particular interest in the opportunities of digital competence.

With a strong belief in forging the divide between academic scholarship and societal practice, Jessica Taylor Piotrowski often shares her work in higher education classrooms, at public policy organizations, at children’s media organizations, and with childcare providers both within the Netherlands and worldwide. She is the co-author of the book Plugged In: How Media Attract and Affect Youth (2017), and regularly publishes in communication, psychology, and education journals.

Terms of reference

  • The SAB of the ViDSS has an advisory role and supports the Doctoral School in particular with development planning. The SAB will not undertake any formal evaluations.
  • The SAB consists of three to five members who are proposed by the members of the steering committee on the basis of their academic, leadership and teaching experience in one or several of the research fields covered by the ViDSS. The SAB members are appointed for a period of four years, which may be renewed once.
  • The SAB meets in person at least every two years. Additional meetings may be held in person or online, if required, to support the speaker and the steering committee in preparing monitoring reports or other documents that are important for strategic planning. Meetings with the Rectorate are welcome.
  • The SAB selects a chairperson among its members. The speaker of the ViDSS sets the dates and draft agendas of SAB meetings in coordination with the chairperson. The chairperson presides over SAB meetings and is supported by the speaker and the coordinator of the ViDSS in issuing any resulting reports or recommendations in a timely manner.
  • The SAB reports its findings and recommendations to the speaker and the steering committee of the ViDSS; parts of the report may be forwarded to the Dean and/or the Rector. If needed, the SAB may make confidential comments on specific issues to the speaker and the steering committee.

Former members

  • W. Lance Bennett (2021–2025)
  • Catherine Lyall (2021–2023)
  • Alessandro Monsutti (2021–2025)
  • Emily York (2023–2025)