Academic Career and Foreign Experience
Since 2018 Director of Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos (CELA)
Since 2017 Director of the Maria Sibylla Merian Center of Latin American Advanced Studies (CALAS)
2015: Visiting Professor at the Institute Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI), Spain
2013: Visiting Professor at Rutgers University, New Jersey, USA
2009 – 2015: Director of the International Center for Development and Decent Work
Since 2007 Spokesperson of the doctoral program Global Social Policies and Governance
Since 2005 Full Professor of International and Intersocietal Relations at the University of Kassel
2004-2005 Substitute Professor of Political Science and head of the International Studies Program in Political Management at the University of Applied Sciences in Bremen
2003-2005 Head of a research project on international social policy at the Institute of Ibero-American Studies (IIK) in Hamburg
2000-2004 Lecturer at the Institute of Sociology and Social Psychology at the University of Hanover. Scientific Consulting for the European Initiative for Democracy and Human Rights (EIDHR) and the Federal Ministry of Education and Science. Member of the working group establishing the Collaborative Research Center SFB 597 “Transformations of the State” at the University of Bremen
2001 Second Ph.D. (Habilitation) at the University of Hanover with the thesis: “International social funds: neoliberalism with a human face?”
1997-2000 Researcher, lecturer and head of several research projects at the Institute of Sociology and Social Psychology at the University of Hanover
1997 Ph.D. (Dr. rer. pol.) at the University of Bremen with the thesis “Selected aspects of development and transformation theories. The Cuban case“
1993-1996 Continued studies in sociology and economics at the University of Bremen. Graduated with distinguished diploma in both subjects.
1992-1993 Studies at the University of Havana. Participation in a research project on reforms in transition countries and regional integration
1988-1992 Studies in sociology and economics at the University of Freiburg. Acceptance into a promotion program for gifted students
Main areas of teaching and research
North-South Relations, Ecological, Labour and Social Policy Regimes in International Perspective, Democracy and Social Inequality, Theory of Development and Development Politics, Latin America