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Meet the Inequality Hub Team & Collaborators
TEAM

We are a multidisciplinary and multicultural team with a passion for research

Profile photo of Simone M. Schneider
Principal Investigator

Simone M. Schneider

Inequality scholar seeking the unseen. Vintage gem hunter & caffenol artist.

Social Stratification & Social Policy | Public Opinion & Human Behaviour | Macro-Micro Linkages

Simone Schneider is professor tenure-track at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. As the PI of PERGAP, she oversees, coordinates, and engages in all project-related activities at UPF and the Max Planck Institute of Social Law and Social Policy in Munich. In addition to PERGAP, she is an active member in various research groups on related topics, organises international workshops, and teaches classes in political science and sociology at all academic levels.

Simone holds a BA and MA degree in Social Sciences from Humboldt University Berlin. In 2014, she received her PhD in Sociology from the same university as part of the international program European PhD in Socio-Economic and Statistical Studies. Before joining UPF, she held positions as postdoctoral or visiting researcher at Trinity College Dublin, the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy, the European University Institute, the University of Tampere, and Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile.

Her research expertise spans the disciplines of sociology, social policy, and social psychology with a focus on topics surrounding the legitimation and reproduction of social inequality. In her research, she explores (1) how individuals perceive and legitimate inequalities and related social policies, (2) how perceptions and justification patterns are shaped by the socio-political context, and (3) how individuals emotionally and behaviourally respond towards them. Her work has appeared in numerous journals, amongst others in European Sociological Review, Social Psychology Quarterly, Social Science and Medicine, Health Policy, Journal of European Social Policy, Journal of Social Policy, Social Indicators Research, and Journal of Happiness Studies.

Google Scholar | Research Gate

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Research Assistant

Mei Araki

Social equality advocate communicating interculturally. Podcast addict & aspiring minimalist.

Science, Technology & Society | Responsibility | Gender | Project Management

Mei Araki is studying Responsibility in Science, Engineering, and Technology (MA) at the Technical University of Munich. She is a research assistant in the PERGAP project working at the Max Planck Institute for Social Law and Social Policy in Munich. She spearheads the design, implementation, and maintenance of the PERGAP website. Mei also strategises and executes internal team operations, such as implementing task management and team communication software.

Mei holds a BA in Physics and Philosophy from Brown University, where she studied Rudolf Carnap’s logical positivism as a final-year project. She then worked in management consulting at Bain & Company, where she focused on multi-year strategy and sales excellence projects while implementing internal diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.

Her research operates at the intersection of gender, policy, economics, and technological innovation. In particular, she is curious about how innovation infrastructures, policies, and funding co-produce notions of gender and intersectionality in society.

Profile photo of Javier Sánchez Busó
PhD Candidate

Javier Sánchez Busó

Political scientist specialising in global Valencia promotion. Literature and cinema enthusiast.

Public Policy & Welfare Regimes | Social Stratification | Political Attitudes & Behaviour

Javier Sánchez Busó is a PhD Candidate in the Political and Social Science Department at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. He is writing his dissertation within the framework of the PERGAP project under the supervision of Simone M. Schneider. In his thesis, Javier investigates the stratifying elements of welfare state institutions and their consequences for perceptions of social status and political preference formation.

Javier holds a double BA in Law and Political Science from the Universitat de València and a MA in Political Science from the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. At the Universitat de València, he conducted research in the fields of regulatory policy and public law with a focus on the governance of environmental and energy policy.

His research interests are dedicated to understanding social policy and the comparison of welfare state institutions, structural inequalities, and political attitudes and behaviour. In particular, he seeks to explore how (social) policy feedback processes contribute to social stratification by applying a country comparative framework.

Profile photo of Mehdi Mikani
PhD Candidate (2023-2024)

Mehdi Mikani

Social psychologist navigating cultures & minds.

Distributive Justice | Religion | Discrimination | Just World Beliefs

Mehdi Mikani is a PhD Candidate in the Political and Social Science Department at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. He started his dissertation within the framework of the PERGAP project. In his thesis, Mehdi investigates inequality related norms, ideologies, and belief systems and the sociopolitical contexts that motivate their formation.

Mehdi holds a BSc in Mechanical Engineering from Khaje Nasir Toosi University of Technology and a MA in Psychology from Trabiat Modares University in Iran. He has directed empirical research on topics such as religion, prejudice, discrimination and just-world beliefs in the Iranian culture. His research has appeared in journals, such as Social Justice Research, Current Psychology, and Evolutionary Psychology.

His research interests surround social psychological explanations for attitudes towards inequality and justice. In particular, he is curious to learn about the cognitive and motivational bases for misperceptions and justifications of inequality among advantaged and disadvantaged social groups within diverse sociopolitical contexts.

Profile photo of Roeland Endtz
Pre-doctoral Researcher (2023-2024)

Roeland Endtz

Social scientist with a passion for music, chess and random geography trivia.

Comparative Social Policy | Social Stratification | Political Attitudes & Behaviour

Roeland Endtz was a pre-doctoral researcher in the PERGAP project at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. He helped to lay the foundations for PERGAP by supporting the compilation of legal and statistical information from international data sources, managing the literature database, and producing systematic literature reviews.

Roeland holds two BSc degrees from the University of Amsterdam – one in Politics, Psychology, Law and Economics (PPLE) and one in Sociology – and a MA in European Politics and Society from the Václav Havel Joint Master Programme, where he studied the relationship between ideological extremism and different dimensions of affective polarisation for his final thesis project.

His research interests are dedicated to understanding political polarisation, social stratification, and the determinants of political attitudes. In particular, he is interested in how macro- and micro-level factors shape attitudes towards out-groups.

COLLABORATORS

Introducing experts who inspire new ideas through collaboration

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