Project Members of the Subproject 4
and Cluster Management
Michaela Pelican (Cluster Director)
Michaela Pelican is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne. She is also the speaker and coordinator of the international research unit “The production and reproduction of social inequalities: Global contexts and concepts of labour exploitation,” PI in the DFG research unit FOR 5183 “Transborder Mobility and Institutional Dynamics,” and board member of the Global South Studies Center Cologne (GSSC). Previously, she was a guest professor at the Graduate School of Asian and African Area Studies (ASAFAS) at Universität Kyoto (2011), a researcher with the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle/Saale (2000-2006), and a Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Kent (2003). She received her PhD from the Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg.
Michaela’s research and teaching interests include ethnicity, conflict, South-South migration, social inequalities and research methodology. She has conducted research in Cameroon, China, Gabon, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates. Her work has been published with leading publishers and journals in anthropology and migration studies, including African Study Monographs, American Ethnologist, Anthropology Today, Berghahn, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Migration and Development, Transcript, Zeitschrift für Ethnologie.
Thilo Zimmermann (Cluster Coordinator)
As head of unit "Academic Networks & SDG Goals" Thilo is responsible for projects to support the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals. He studied economics at the University of Cologne and holds a PhD in International Political Economy from the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Pisa, Italy. He went to Harvard University and Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris for research stays. Before, he worked at the German Embassy in Rome, Italy, where he coordinated several projects.
Cologne International Forum Overview