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 currently working as a research associate (teaching and research) in the Department of Social Sciences at the Otto-von-Guericke University (OvGU) in Magdeburg, Germany. By training, I am a demographer: I obtained a BA in social sciences and a MSc in demography from the University of Rostock (Germany), where I specialized in quantitative methods, sociology and demography. Early on I was interested in how familial circumstances shape the lives of individuals – in my Master thesis, I investigated the antecedents and prerequisites of post-marital re-partnering.

At the end of 2017 I began working on my PhD thesis that examines the relationship between parents’ lives and children’s well-being and is supervised by Jan Delhey (OvGU, Magdeburg) and Matthias Pollmann-Schult (University of Siegen). Contrary to a still large part of the child-well-being literature, I am taking the children’s own views into account by using child-reported well-being measures. Thus far, two of my thesis papers have been published: One examines the effect of maternal work-family conflict on children’s psychological well-being (Journal of Child and Family Studies) and one investigates the effect of inter-parental conflict on children’s social well-being (Applied Research in Quality of Life).  The remaining two papers concern the consequences of mothers’ and fathers’ depressiveness for children’s emotional problems and the impact of family and school relations on children’s life satisfaction in a cross-national perspective. If all goes well, I will submit my PhD thesis by the end of this year (wish me luck).

For my Post-Doc years, I plan on doing more cross-national research on family lives. I am particularly interested in the influence of family relationships and family types on individuals’ subjective well-being and life courses under different economic conditions and cultural climates.

Besides my PhD research, I usually engage in one or two research endeavors that are not part of my thesis. Currently I am working on a project on status seeking with our team in Magdeburg and on a project on well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic in a transnational collaboration. Much of the remainder of my time is devoted to teaching, which I (mostly) really enjoy. This summer will be my 10^th semester of teaching students from a variety of bachelor and master programs like social sciences and European studies. Since we are very independent in designing our courses in the German university system, I bring a lot from my research and research interests into the classroom. I always take away new and different perspectives from the exchange with my students.

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

I originally wanted to write my PhD thesis about possibilities of reconciling work and family life in Germany. Upon doing research for my first paper, I noticed how few studies on child well-being actually relied on children’s own reports of their well-being. Despite child-reported data being available, the majority of research built on measures reported by parents or teachers: a major research gap that soon became my field of interest. Since then I have learned a lot about child well-being and about the broader field of quality-of-life studies. I am still fascinated by the interdisciplinary effort that is undertaken by researchers from all over the world to fathom the broad range of phenomena that can be subsumed under the umbrella term ‘quality of life’ – and sometimes I am still astounded that now I am one of the contributors to this knowledge.

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

Overall, I think – thanks to the diversity and interdisciplinarity in our field – we are paying attention to most of the pressing issues. However, top of mind, there is one field of study that, though not new, deserves more attention: We should explore life domain satisfactions more widely. Though there is quite a lot of research concerning job and financial satisfaction, other life domains are awfully neglected. It would be really interesting to explore the “bottom-up vs top-down” question and cross-cultural patterns and differences.

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 became an ISQOLS member in 2019 when the first paper of my PhD thesis was accepted for presentation at the annual conference in Granada. Honestly, I first signed up for the membership because the conference fee was way lower for members. However, the experience I made at the conference completely changed my view on being an ISQOLS-member. I was getting amazing feedback and guidance that unveiled different perspectives on my research, I was getting it from colleagues from different disciplines and different cultural backgrounds and everyone was very cordial, supportive and creative. Literally every member I met thus far has been willing to share advice and resources without hesitation. This led to me staying engaged and since then presenting each and every part of my thesis to the ISQOLS community (be it in person or virtual).

5. Feel free to include any other important comments or things you'd like to share with the ISQOLS community.

Thank you to all the ISQOLS people for being so welcoming. It helped me a great deal when I was a very fresh PhD student and did not know the rules of the game. The network I built here and the exchange that comes with it continue to help me improve my research and see the broader picture – within academia but also with regards to the real-life impact of my work. In an academic world where competitiveness is a leading value, I very much appreciate being part of a community that is kind, supportive and generous. I am looking forward to seeing you all in Rotterdam!