Project Team

Mara Yerkes

Mara Yerkes is principal investigator and project leader of the CoGIS-NL project. She is Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Social Science at the Department of Interdisciplinary Social Science, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. She obtained her PhD at the University of Amsterdam in 2006. Her research centres on the two broad themes of comparative social policy and social inequalities. In relation to social policy, Yerkes researches comparative welfare states, industrial relations and citizenship regimes. In relation to social inequalities, Yerkes’ research interests include inequalities related to work, care, communities and families, in particular in relation to gender, generations, and sexuality. These two themes come together in the CAPABLE project.

Stéfanie André

Stéfanie André is a political sociologist by training and works as assistant professor of Public Administration at Radboud University. Her main research interests are how men combine work and care and the consequences of policy (especially family policy and housing policy). In Nijmegen she is also leader of the Radboud WORKLIFE consortium (www.work-life.eu) which combines interdisciplinary research and teaching on combing work with your private life responsibilities. Before, she coordinated the nineth round of the European Social Survey and obtained a PhD in Sociology at Tilburg University

Sabine Geurts

Dr. Sabine Geurts is a full professor of work- and organizational psychology at the Behavioural Science Institute at the Radboud University, Nijmegen (Netherlands). She is a senior researcher and lecturer in occupational health psychology. She leads the department of work & organizational psychology. Her research interests include stress, recovery, work-life balance, new ways of working, flexible working times and physical activity as part of a healthy lifestyle. Geurts also serves  as a Consulting Editor for Work & Stress.

Bryn Hummel

Bryn Hummel is a PhD candidate at the Amsterdam University Medical Centre (since June 1st, 2021). Her PhD concerns sex- and gender differences in the care for people with suspected cardiovascular disease, focusing on the diagnostic process within the primary care setting. Bryn worked on the COGIS-NL study as a research assistant from July 2020 until March of 2021. Besides her PhD project, Bryn has an interest in a wide range of social issues, from socioeconomic inequalities and social policy to social determinants of health, focusing mostly on these issues from a gender perspective.  

Peter Kruyen

Roos van der Zwan

Roos van der Zwan is a postdoctoral researcher at NIDI whose research focuses on diversity and inclusion from an interdisciplinary perspective. In addition to examining gender (in)equalities during COVID-19 as part of the COGNIS-NL team, her current research focuses on female refugees in the Netherlands. In 2020, Roos won the Instituut Gak-KNAW award. In her Instituut Gak-KNAW project she examines the labour market position of refugees in the Netherlands. She studies the differences in the position of female and male refugees and to what extent life course events affect their position on the labour market.

Janna Besamusca

Janna Besamusca is assistant professor of Interdisciplinary Social Science at Utrecht University. She obtained her PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 2019 for her research into the position of mothers in the labour market in middle- and high-income countries.

Besamusca is a labor sociologist interested in work and family issues, (minimum) wages and working hours. She has conducted research into decent work in low wage sectors, wages in collective bargaining, self-employment and motherhood, and the effects of work-family policies on mothers’ labour market position.

Chantal Remery

Chantal Remery is assistant professor at the Utrecht University School of Economics. She conducts research into labour market and organisational issues, in particular from a gender perspective. Her areas of expertise include labour market flexibility, reconciliation issues and vertical segregation. For many years Chantal has been a member of the European Network of Experts on Gender Equality and co-authored a number of studies for the European Commission on, amongst others, reconciliation policies, the gender pay gap, gender mainstreaming of employment policies, and (out-of-school) childcare policies. She also co-authored a study on the European Gender Equality index, which was principal input for the Gender Equality Index of the European Institute for Gender Equality. She is currently a member of the expert panel for the European Platform for Investing in Children within the context of the European Alliance for Families.