DAAD guest professor Helga de Valk
Helga de Valk is the new DAAD Guest Professor. She will be holding the Chair for International Comparative Studies during the Winter Semester 2008/2009. Helga de Valk studied social sciences and education at the University of Utrecht, the Humboldt University Berlin and Warwick University. She received her PhD (Sociology) from Utrecht University. Since 2006 she has been a post-doctoral researcher at the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute and the Institute for Migration and Ethnic Studies of the University of Amsterdam. From October 2008 on she has been appointed Professor of Social Research at the Vrije Universiteit Brussels.
Her research focuses on the transition to adulthood of immigrant youth, intergenerational relationships in immigrant families, values and attitudes, and educational paths of immigrant young adults. Currently she concentrates on the second generation in Europe (Towards Integration of Europe’s Second Generation, TIES project) and the Children of Immigrants in School project, a transatlantic comparison on the educational trajectories of children of immigrants in New York City and Amsterdam.
Among other academic activities Helga de Valk is executive secretary of the European Association for Population Studies. While in Bremen, she is staying in Delmenhorst as a Fellow of the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg. She will teach a course in the Masters Program "Soziologie und Sozialforschung" and seminars on migration topics in the BIGSSS PhD program.