When you were in the Max Weber Programme, what was your research on?
I mostly worked on gender in the labour market. That's what I did for my dissertation, and I continued to do it here. I looked at the consequences of motherhood for women's careers and labour force attachment, and how that matters for gender inequality. I also looked at wage inequality between men and women. I'm basically continuing this work now in an ERC postdoc, but adding the unpaid labour side to the paid labour side.
What is your fondest memory from your time at the EUI?
My fondest memory from the EUI is really the people I have met here, whether professionally or personally. Professionally, it would be the people I have met in sociology in the SPS Department, whether professors or PhD students I have seen starting out and who will be graduating soon. It has been good to have a scholarly community here that I fit into so well.
In the Max Weber Programme, it was meeting people from the other departments who became friends. During the Coppa Pavone we created a team, and now some have come back and we are all playing together again, for the third time.
How has the network that you developed at the EUI helped you?
I met people here who had contacts in common with me in the US, and that opened doors, not just at the EUI but across other universities. I was able to present at Sciences Po and at SOFI in Sweden, for example.
Professionally, it has made a real difference, because I felt like something of an outsider when I came back to Europe after completing a PhD in the US: an outsider to the sociology network here. But being at the EUI, with so many people passing through, has really helped me feel part of a wider European sociology community. That has been very valuable.
Did you experience any particularly challenging time during the Max Weber Programme, and how did you get through it?
What's challenging, and maybe this isn't specific to the Max Weber Programme but to being a postdoc in general, is having to be on the job market basically every year that you're in the programme. It's stressful, and there's quite a lot of uncertainty. Having a community here helped: I had mentors who could support me with that, and friends around.
You start a postdoc and it feels good. But then the reality of the job market hits, and you need people around you. I found that here, help for the next phase, which for me is still at the EUI, just in a different role.
What advice would you give to current or future Max Weber Fellows?
If I had to give one piece of advice, I would say: enjoy the breathing room. A postdoc is not a permanent position; it's a very transitional one, and during it you're also navigating the job market and its pressures. But the EUI and the Max Weber programme offer something rare: real time for research, time to finish what you started in your PhD, the freedom and opportunity to invite people whose work inspires you to come and present, and a genuinely inspiring community: fellow Max Weber Fellows, EUI faculty, PhD researchers, and visiting professors. So don't let the anxiety about what's next crowd out the fact that this is a genuinely privileged moment to just do research, even if that's hard to remember in the moment, speaking from experience.
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The EUI Alumni Testimonials series offers a glimpse into the diverse paths and experiences of our alumni. Through their stories, we revisit meaningful moments from their time at the EUI and discover how these experiences continue to shape their personal and professional journeys.
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Disclaimer: All information reported in this article reflects solely the perspective of EUI alumni and former EUI members. In no case does this article represent the view of the organisations the interviewees are affiliated with.