Karin Schmidt Martinez


PhD fellow

Research group(s):
6. Migration and Development

Karin has been a PhD Fellow at UNU-MERIT since 2022. Her doctoral research explores the im/mobility aspirations of young people in contexts of forced displacement. This research will employ the aspirations-capabilities framework (Carling, 2002; Carling & Schewel, 2018; de Haas, 2021), theories of waithood (Singerman, 2007), liminality and youth transitions, and a mixed-method approach to delve into the factors and mechanisms that underpin aspirations to stay or to migrate while transitioning into adulthood in adverse structural environments, where the realisation of aspirations seems, and often is, out of reach. 

Karin has worked for over a decade as a humanitarian practitioner with UN agencies and NGOs in programme/project development, strategic planning, monitoring, research and evaluation, focusing on the situation of children, adolescents, and youth in contexts of forced migration and displacement.




UNU-MERIT