I work as a Research Professor (higher education pedagogy) at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research (FIER), University of Jyväskylä. In my work, I combine educational and sociological approaches to explore education in the context of higher education.
At FIER, I am a co-leader of the research area ‘Higher education as a pedagogical and social phenomenon’. I am a member of the editorial advisory board of leading journal in the field, Studies in Higher Education, and co-convenor in network 22, Research in Higher Education, in European Educational Research Association (EERA).
Earlier I have worked around 16 years at Tampere University in the field of university pedagogical studies and research. Before that, I worked around nine years at HAMK University of Applied Sciences. I have been a visiting fellow at Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS), Uppsala University, Sweden (2020-2021), a visiting scholar at the University of Melbourne, Australia (2019), and have a role of associate professor II (20%) at the University of Bergen, Norway (2024-2026). I work part-time at Tampere University (doctoral seminar, supervision and research project management) (2025-2026).
My research focus on higher education; particularly on three themes: research on 1) knowledge in curriculum in higher education, 2) teacher’s work, agency and academic communities and 3) student engagement and experience. I have interest to study how educational and curriculum changes transform the idea of university education and academic communities in the long run, what are the special features when universities with different traditions are approaching each other in curriculum and teaching, and what is the meaning of these changes to faculty members and students.
Currently I am a PI in a project (Un)Making Knowledge: students’ relationship with knowledge from Modernity to AI (2025-2029), funded by the Kone Foundation.
