My substantive research focuses on spatial mobility, social networks, family and intimate life. I have a keen interest in studying the spatiality of social networks and how spatial distance and mobility behaviours relate to individuals’ social and professional integration over the life course.

I currently co-convene the Social Network Analysis in Scotland (SNAS) Group, I am member of the Edinburgh Q-Step staff and I am an associate researcher at CRFR.

I joined Edinburgh Sociology as a Chancellor's Fellow in September 2012. Prior to this, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the centre for mobility research (CeMoRe) at Lancaster University, an Invited Scholar at Federal Institute for Population Research in Wiesbaden, Germany, a Teaching Assistant in the sociology department at Geneva University and a Research Fellow at LaSUR (Laboratory of Urban Sociology) at Swiss federal Institute of Technology (EPFL) and at PAVIE (Laboratory of Life Course Research) at Lausanne University.

I completed my PhD in Sociology at the University of Geneva in 2011.

I am pursuing these research aims in various collaborative research projects.

(1) I am the Principal Investigator of the project Inequalities in geographical mobility, conjugal networks and conjugal quality (2019-22) that aims to analyse how individuals’ spatial mobility skills and their social networks, including the couples’ network overlap, moderate the influence of residential mobility on couples. Following a successful call, a specific module of questions will be added to the Swiss ISSP-MOSAiCH 2019 survey. The project will be integrated into the last phase of the NCCR-LIVES with the collaboration of the University of Lausanne and the Laboratory of Urban Sociology-EPFL.

(2) I am a Co-Investigator of the large survey Personal networks of young adults in Switzerland: Social capital, educational and work aspirations (2017-2023) (PI: Professor Eric Widmer, University of Geneva), funded by the Swiss government (Swiss Federal Department of Defence, Civil Protection and Sport - DDPS) via the Swiss Federal Surveys of Adolescents Ch-x, (£1.2m).

This large project will survey a national cohort of young men, mostly aged 19, in 2020-21 who will participate in a compulsory information session on the Swiss military service. An additional sample of young women living in Switzerland will be interviewed. In total, n=50,000 participants will be surveyed. The project aims to better understand the role of young people’s personal relationships and personal networks on their educational and work aspirations. My main interests are to analyse (1) the relationships between three dimensions of exclusion: spatial, social and professional exclusion through the experience of unemployment/unstable educational and work history; and (2) the role of interpersonal relationships on aspirations using a multi-level design at the tie, network and regional levels.

(3) I am a Co-Investigator (10% FTE buyout) of the international TEAMS project (2020-23) (PI: Dr Natasa Pantic, Moray House School of Education) (£1,1m), which aims to better understand how teachers, schools and education systems facilitate migrant integration. It will also create opportunities for professional learning for educators, and for migrant students to relate their lived experiences of schooling through film-making and photography. The combination of social network analysis and ethnographic research aims to identify educational practices and structural conditions that facilitate opportunities for migrants’ academic success, cross-cultural socialization, and developing a sense of belonging in their school communities.

(4) I am involved in a longstanding research collaboration with Dr Heiko Rüger of the Federal Institute for Population Research (BiB) in Wiesbaden, Germany, using the European survey data ‘Job Mobilities and Family Lives in Europe’. This collaboration addresses a clear research gap in the field by analysing the long-term impact of work-related mobility behaviours on fertility and union stability using longitudinal data and in a cross-national comparison (see for ex. Rüger & Viry, 2017).

(5) I am involved in a research collaboration with Dr Andreas Herz of the University of Hildesheim, Germany, using the 2013 MOSAiCH-ISSP Swiss survey data. Using multilevel analysis with network data, this collaboration aims to examine the role of physical distance between respondents and their family members on reciprocity and how this impact varies with the characteristics of the respondents (including their attitudes toward family roles – ISSP specific module), the kind of relationships and the network structure.

(6) I am involved in an interdisciplinary research collaboration with Professor Claire Bidart (CNRS Marseille) and Dr Marion Maisonobe (human geographer, CNRS Paris) on advanced methods for analysing and mapping the geography of personal networks, using GIS (geographic information system) and longitudinal network data.