1. First, list your current professional title. Second, describe your background, experience, and research as it relates to Quality-of-life studies. Feel free to describe this in detail.

I am a Research Fellow at the Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, at the University of Melbourne. I am also a Research Fellow at the Australian Research Council’s Centre of Excellence for Children and Families over the Life Course. I am originally from South Africa, and in 2017 completed my PhD in Social and Economic Sciences at the University of Antwerp, Belgium, under the supervision of Professors Edwin Wouters (University of Antwerp) and Frikkie Booysen (University of the Witwatersrand). My dissertation combined elements of sociology and economics, looking at the interrelationships between family functioning, subjective wellbeing, and socioeconomic status. I was also very fortunate that Professor Valerie Møller, one of the world’s leading quality-of-life-researchers, agreed to serve as one of the members of my doctoral commission. I have conducted research on subjective wellbeing applied to a wide range of areas, including social- and family relationships, education, mental health, socioeconomic status, labour economics, and intergenerational transmission. I am currently a Co-Editor of Social Indicators Research, which exposes me to a wide range of interesting and important studies in the field.  

2.  What initially attracted you to the field of quality-of-life studies?

It was actually accidental. While searching for a potential topic for my Masters dissertation, I read an economics paper referring to ‘happiness’. Before this, I was not even aware that the economics of subjective wellbeing was a field of study. This prompted me to read further on the topic and I eventually settled on a dissertation focusing on life satisfaction as one of the key outcomes. Since then I have been very interested in the broader field of quality-of-life studies and view it as one of my areas of research.

3. What are some areas of quality-of-life studies you feel are lacking attention? Any advice for future QoL researchers?

Most quantitative research in the field has tended to focus on average associations. We can gain a lot of insight from moving beyond average effects and considering differences across the entire distribution of the outcome of interest. For example, a certain intervention might have a different impact depending on whether an individual is low or high in the life satisfaction distribution; looking at average relationships would not reveal such a finding. I am aware of some work on distribution effects applied to subjective wellbeing (by Martin Binder, for example), but I think there is a lot more scope for such types of analyses. Another issue that could be investigated further is the idea of using subjective wellbeing as an important explanatory variable. Most studies view subjective wellbeing as a final outcome, but it is also relevant to consider how your wellbeing might impact on other important outcomes. I would advise future QoL researchers to be open to conducting multidisciplinary research with researchers from different fields. This enables you to combine different perspectives to study a specific question and ultimately improve the research.

4. How long have you been a member of ISQOLS? Why did you choose to be a member of ISQOLS? How has your involvement in ISQOLS impacted your career/research/advancement in your knowledge of QoL studies?

I have been a member of ISQOLS since 2016. Prior to this I was fortunate to attend and present at the ISQOLS conferences in Venice in 2012 and Berlin in 2014. My experiences during these conferences especially highlighted to me the importance of becoming an ISQOLS member. It opens up network opportunities with top researchers in the field, and allows you to stay informed of what is happening in the society as well as with other opportunities. I have found the ISQOLS community to be very welcoming and open to sharing ideas that may help improve each other’s work.