People

Professor Jane Gray

Principal Investigator

Jane Gray is Professor of Sociology at Maynooth University. Her scholarship centres on questions relating to families, households and social change, with a particular focus on biographical life course analysis. She is principal investigator on the project LINLOSS: Towards a Sociology of Loss – Disposals and Dead-ends in Lineages of Social Innovation and Change (funded by the European Research Council 2023-2028). She is also Principal Investigator on the National Open Research Forum funded project QSA*Net: Promoting Open Research in Qualitative Social Science (2035-2025). She was national co-ordinator for Ireland on the project RESCuE: Citizens’ Resilience in Times of Crisis (funded by the EU under Framework 7, 2014-2017) and a co-principal investigator on the Irish Government funded project to develop the Digital Repository of Ireland (2015-2019). She has a longstanding interest in sharing and re-using qualitative social science data and played a leading role in the establishment of the Irish Qualitative Data Archive.

Dr. Witold Mandrysz

Research partner representing the University of Silesia in Katowice

Witold Mandrysz is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Sociology, University of Silesia in Katowice, where he obtained his PhD in 2007. His main research interests are social capital, community studies, social economics, social work, ethnic and cultural minorities, regional development, civic dialogue and participation. He has been involved in several national and international research projects, most recently in RESCuE: Patterns of Resilience during Socioeconomic Crises among Households in Europe (funded by the EU 7th Framework Programme 2014-2017. From 2022 to 2023 he was a member of the research team carrying out field research on behalf of WISE Europe within the international research project CINTRAN ‘Carbon Intensive Regions in Transition – Unravelling the Challenges of Structural Change’ (funded under the EU Horizon Programme, 2020-2024).

Since 2005 he is responsible from the site of the University of Silesia in Katowice for the international joint degree study programme SOWOSEC – Master in Social Work and Social Economy . He conducts ongoing didactic cooperation by delivering regular didactic classes on social work, social economy and community organising at several partner universities: FH-Campus Wien, Austria; University of Debrecen in Debrecen, Hungary; Ostravska Universita in Ostrava Czech Republic.

He is passionate about martial arts and has achieved the master level and 1st Dan in Aikido. He is also a keen motorcyclist.

Dr. Siresa L. Berengueres

Post-doctoral researcher

Siresa López Berengueres is a Senior Post-doctoral Researcher at the Sociology Department and the Social Sciences Institute, National University of Ireland Maynooth; and an Associated Researcher at the Centre for Research on Social Inequalities, Sciences Po Paris. A transdisciplinary scholar by training, Siresa received her Ph.D. in Sociology (Sciences Po Paris) and holds degrees in Economics (University of Barcelona) and Anthropology (Autonomous University of Barcelona). She has held research and teaching positions at Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, Sciences Po Paris, the University of Leicester, the University of Liège, and the Barcelona Institute for International Studies. Her agenda focuses on the cultural dimension of globalisation and human mobility, contemporary class divisions, Marxian cultural theory, European integration and cultural citizenship.

Dr. Milena Komarova

Post-doctoral researcher

Milena Komarova holds a PhD in Sociology (2008) from Queen’s University Belfast (QUB). She has been a Research Fellow for The Conflict In Cities And The Contested State ESRC-funded multidisciplinary research project, at QUB (2007 – 2013); The Senator George J. Mitchell Institute For Global Peace, Security And Justice, QUB (2013 – 2016); The Centre For Cross-Border Studies, Armagh (2017 – 2019); and for The UK In A Changing Europe Initiative, QUB (2019 – 2022). Most recently, Milena has been a Lecturer in Human Geography at QUB (2022 – 2024).
Her work spans the fields of conflict, urban and border studies, exploring the intersections between themes such everyday life, urban space, and conflict transformation in ethno-nationally divided cities. She has further studied the impact of the UK’s withdrawal from the EU on (re)bordering the island of Ireland, focusing on political and border residents’ contestation of such (re)bordering. This work integrates and reflects Milena’s expertise in qualitative and ethnographic methodology, including in the use of mobile and visual methods.
Milena has published on urban regeneration, the development of ‘shared space’, the management of contentious parades and protests, the role of visibility and movement in urban public space, and on the effects of Brexit on the Irish border region.

Dr. Maria P. Waclawik

Post-doctoral researcher

Maria Waclawik received her PhD in sociology from Jagiellonian University in Cracow, where she also completed her master’s degree at the Institute of American Studies and Polish Diaspora. Additionally, she graduated in ethnomusicology from the Institute of Musicology at University of Warsaw. Dr. Waclawik has been recognized with several awards, including the Doctoral Student Research Award from the Government of Canada, the Graduate Student Scholarship from the International Council for Canadian Studies, and the Nancy Burke Award from the Polish Association for Canadian Studies. She was a visiting scholar at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver from 2012 to 2013 and conducted research at the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles in 2016. In addition to her academic achievements, she has been actively involved in artistic pursuits as a singer. She has authored peer-reviewed articles and chapters in monographs, and participated in numerous national and international scientific conferences.