Meet The Team

Michelle Norris is principal investigator and coordinator of EqualHouse. She is Professor of Social Policy and Director of the Geary Institute for Public Policy at University College Dublin. Her teaching and research interests focus on housing policy and urban regeneration. She has led over 30 research projects on these issues and produced 200 publications on the results. She has strong links with policy makers in Ireland and internationally. 

She has served as a member of the boards of two of the main agencies responsible for providing social housing in Ireland - the Housing Finance Agency and Land Development Agency and was member of the Housing Commission established by the Irish which reported in 2024. She was one of lead authors of the Housing2030 report on improving affordable housing outcomes which was commissioned by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe and UN Habitat and published in 2022 and which inspired the EqualHouse project.

Manuel B. Aalbers, the co-PI of EqualHouse and lead of WPs4 and 6, is professor of Human Geography at KU Leuven, the University of Leuven (Belgium) where he leads a research group on the intersection of real estate, finance and states. He has published on financialization, redlining, social and financial exclusion, neoliberalism, mortgage markets, the privatization of social housing, neighborhood decline and gentrification.

He is the author of Place, Exclusion, and Mortgage Markets (Wiley-Blackwell, 2011) and The Financialization of Housing: A Political Economy Approach (Routledge, 2016). He is the editor of Subprime Cities: The Political Economy of Mortgage Markets (Wiley-Blackwell, 2012) and the associate editor of the Encyclopedia of Urban Studies (Sage, 2010).

Dara Turnbull is the Research Coordinator at Housing Europe, where he has worked since 2019. His role primarily involves knowledge aggregation and dissemination, working to ensure that both the challenges and good practices related to the provision of public, cooperative, and social housing in Europe are clearly understood and communicated to key stakeholders across the continent. This often consists of developing detail systemic analyses of different housing models, transforming these into clear and understandable briefings for policymakers and housing practitioners. In addition, Dara provides support on several EU-funded innovation projects, covering topics as diverse as promoting the circular economy in the built environment, establishing citizen energy communities, upscaling modular renovation techniques, and mapping existing national and regional housing policies—and their practical implementation—in the EU.  

Prior to joining Housing Europe, Dara worked for a period as a freelance housing policy consultant, collaborating with public agencies and research institutes. He also worked for six years as an economist in the financial services sector, experience that he still applies today in his analysis of different financing models for the development of social and affordable housing.  

Dara holds a Masters in Economics from the National University of Ireland, Galway and a Bachelors in Economics, Law, and Political Science from Dublin City University.  

Alice Pittini is Research Director at Housing Europe, the European Federation of Public, Cooperative and Social Housing. With over 15 years of professional experience in social and affordable housing, Alice is leading Housing Europe Observatory and she is in charge of providing strategic advice to Housing Europe policy work and devising studies including the bi-annual report ’The State of Housing in Europe’.  In addition, she’s involved in several EU-funded projects – especially around innovative models for renovation of social housing – and monitoring impact of EU policies and funding programmes. 

She previously worked at the OECD as an Economist/Policy Analyst setting up a database on affordable housing.  Alice holds a masters in International Relations from the University of Bologna and is fluent in English, French and Italian.

Caroline's main research interests concern the dynamics of social stratification, from a comparative perspective. In 2011, Caroline received an ERC Starting Grant. In the HOWCOME-project, the interplay during the post-war period between changes in economic and social inequalities and changing housing regimes was analysed.

Her most recent work focusses on the intergenerational transmission of poverty and wealth, and on the macro-level drivers of poverty and wealth, social and political outcomes, and housing opportunities of young adults. Caroline is currently Work Package (WP3)-lead in EqualHouse (HorizonEurope, 2024-2027): From Housing Inequality to Sustainable, Inclusive, and Affordable Housing Solutions

Dr. Muireann Ní Raghallaigh is an Associate Professor of Social Work at University College Dublin (UCD), Ireland, where she primarily teaches on the Professional Masters in Social Work, as well as coordinating an undergraduate module on Refugee Displacement. Muireann previously worked as a social worker with unaccompanied refugee children. Her research is focused on the lived experiences of refugees and international protection applicants, looking at topics such as foster care experiences of unaccompanied refugee children; refugee family reunification and transition from the ‘direct provision’ system in Ireland. 

She has a particular interest in conducting research that has a policy and practice impact. As well as leading the Equal House work package on Inequality in Housing Among Refugees and Migrants, Muireann is also currently finalising research on the care experiences of unaccompanied refugee children in Ireland. Muireann has served on the board of directors of the Irish Refugee Council and is heavily involved in UCD’s University of Sanctuary initiatives.

Sociologist, specialist in housing and housing policy. Assistant Professor at the Institute of Applied Social Sciences, University of Warsaw. For many years, she worked in the field of Polish housing policy, serving as spokesperson for a non-governmental organization and as an expert in programs run by the Ministry of Development, the Institute of Urban and Regional Development, and local government projects. Her research interests include the economic and social determinants of housing sector development, the financialization and institutionalization of the rental market, and the links between housing inequality and labor market inequality. Head of the Master's Program in Urban Studies at the University of Warsaw.

Angeliki Paidakaki is an assistant professor at the Department of Geography of the Harokopio University of Athens. She has expertise in egalitarian urban development, governance innovations, and affordable housing in (post-)crisis times. Between 2018 and 2022, she was a postdoctoral researcher at KU Leuven, where her 2017 PhD dissertation on the post-Katrina housing reconstruction of New Orleans was awarded the University’s highest distinction. In 2021-22, she was also a Fulbright-Schuman research scholar hosted by the University of Illinois at Chicago to conduct research on the politics of housing alliances in the USA. 

Her research focuses on the social and political agency of non-profit housing actors to better realize their housing-for-all vision and shape more egalitarian cities in Europe and the USA. She has published in a wide range of peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes and communicated science to non-academic audiences through podcasts, public speeches and web publications.

Dr Gareth James is based at the University of Glasgow, where he leads knowledge exchange and engagement in Scotland for the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence (CaCHE) and contributes to teaching on the Housing Studies programme. His research focuses on housing and public policy in the UK and internationally, land for housing and development, land reform, livelihoods in Global Majority contexts, poverty and inequality, sustainable development, evidence use in policymaking, and innovative research methods, with a particular interest in Scotland and Zimbabwe.

Kenneth Gibb is a professor at the University of Glasgow where he is Director and PI of the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence. Previously a head of department in Urban Studies, he was also the founding Director of Policy Scotland and a co-Director of the ESRC programme What Works Scotland. Ken’s research is focused on the economic analysis of housing problems and processes, with a particular focus on evaluating housing interventions. He has a long-standing interest in housing tax reform and the economics of social housing. Recent published research includes work on cost benefit analysis of net zero retrofit of older tenement housing. 

He was also lead editor on the Routledge Handbook of Housing Economics (2024). He is currently working on a book for Policy Press on council tax reform in the UK. Ken is a board member and trustee of the Centre for Homelessness Impact and is a committee member of Shelter Scotland. He has given evidence to all four UK parliaments and assemblies, has chaired a Scottish Government short life working group on housing affordability, he was a member of the Northern Ireland housing supply strategy board, and was a member of the recent Scottish Government housing investment taskforce.

Mark Stephens is the Mactaggart Professor in Land, Property and; Urban Studies at the University of Glasgow. He is also an Honorary Professor at The University of Sydney and an Adjunct Professor at the University of Adelaide. He has conducted large-scale evaluations of housing policy, including the Evaluation of English Housing Policy for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and the EU Study on Housing Exclusion for the European Commission. He also led a government Expert Panel on Housing, was an independent member of the Social Justice and Fairness Commission, and is lead editor of the UK Housing Review. He is a specialist in comparing housing systems, and leads the UK Centre for Collaborative Housing Research’s international theme. 

He has conducted research on a wide range of topics, much of it from an international comparative perspective. He conducted research on the impact of the European Single Market on mortgage markets, the implications of differential housing and mortgage markets for the European Single Currency and most recently on the treatment of housing in the monetary policy decisions. He has also conducted work on the links between housing and poverty, most recently an ESRC-funded pan-European study with Professor Rod Hick (Cardiff University), and his most recent book is ‘The Routledge Handbook of Housing and Welfare’ (edited with Martin Grander). He was the founding editor of the European (now International) Journal of Housing Policy and is currently chair of its Management Board. He leads the EqualHouse WorkPackage on affordable housing supply.

Barbara Steenbergen has been committed to tenant protection for more than 20 years. She started in 2001 as head of the presidential office of the German Tenants' Union Deutscher Mieterbund in Berlin and as political coordinator for energy policy and international affairs. In 2007, the International Union of Tenants (IUT) elected her as head of the newly founded IUT Liaison Office to the European Union in Brussels, which she established in 2008. Since 2013 Barbara Steenbergen has been a member of the Executive Board of the IUT. 

She is chair of the Jury of the European Responsible Housing Awards since 2013. Since 2020 she is Vice Chair of the Tenants’ Association of Bonn, Germany. She is responsible for the political relations, advocacy and representation of the interests of the European tenant associations towards the EU Commission, the EU Parliament, EU Council, the Committee of the Regions, the European Economic and Social Committee and other relevant bodies at European level.

Dr Julie Lawson is Adjunct Professor for the Centre of Urban Research, RMIT University and Director of Just Cities. She holds a PhD from University of Amsterdam in Spatial Science, and further qualifications in public policy (Melbourne University) and Urban Planning (RMIT). Julie has led research teams in the field of housing and land policy for over 30 years in association with RMIT and AHURI. She  is the principal author of the landmark report #Housing2030 for UN Habitat, UN ECE and Housing Europe on effective policies for affordable housing and also part of the Horizon Equal House Consortium on housing, finance and land policy. Julie’s work has improved the efficiency of financing affordable housing and increased the focus on reforms to address financialization of housing policy (Norris and Lawson, 2023). Since 2022, Dr Lawson as provided advice to the Ukraine on housing recovery, as member of the Recovery Council, Crises Conflict and EU STARTER initiative, and co-author of many reports and presentations including Rebuilding a Place to Call Home and Needs Based Capital Investment Julie also provides independent, evidence based policy advice for good governance in social housing, such as the International Review of Social Housing Regulation and Options for the Good Growth of Social and Affordable Housing.

Professor Holger Wallbaum is a Full Professor in Sustainable building at the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. He holds several management roles, including Vice-Head of the Department and Assistant Head for Research. Professor Wallbaum's research focuses on the ecological and economic life cycle assessment of construction materials, buildings, and infrastructures. He also develops sustainability assessment tools for buildings and advanced building stock modeling and affordable housing renovation concepts. 

Recently, he has established a strong research environment on comfort, well-being, and their impact on occupants' productivity in non-residential buildings. He is an elected member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences and co-founder of two start-up companies, one focusing on housing renovation concepts and the other on healthy and productive offices. 

Professor Wallbaum serves on the Editorial Board of the journal "Development in the Built Environments" and is a subject editor for construction materials and buildings with the International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment. He hosted the World Sustainable Built Environment online conference BEYOND 2020 in November 2020. Additionally, he was the lead author of the chapter on "Climate-neutral housing" in the report Housing 2030, on behalf of the UNECE, UN-Habitat, and Housing Europe. He has supervised over 100 Master's and Bachelor's students and has been the examiner and main supervisor of more than 20 PhD students. His citation index in Scopus includes 121 documents with 2887 citations and an h-index of 30.

Liane Thuvander is a professor of Architecture and Sustainable Building, Chalmers University of Technology, at the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering. Lianes research regards transformation of the built environment on different scales and has its focus on decarbonisation of building stocks; development and application of methodologies for spatial value mapping; digital twins and visualization of energy, environment, and social aspects to support stakeholder engagement and decision making; and implementation of knowledge in practice. 

A major part of Lianes research is carried out in inter- and transdisciplinary environments involving action research and co-creation. Liane is also leader of the Research Area Co-design for Equitable Living Environments.

Márton studied geography with a specialization in regional analysis at the Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest and received his doctoral degree in human geography. He has more than twenty years’ experience in basic and applied research in the field of urban and regional development in Hungary. He is a co-founder of Periféria Policy and Research Center, based in Budapest, Hungary. Márton has research experience in mapping housing inequalities, housing policy monitoring and development. 

He often combines housing issues with a labour perspective, highlighting that employment and unemployment patterns, as well as labour precariousness are inherently co-constituting housing inequalities. Márton is working on Work Packages 3 and 9 in the EqualHouse project.

Zsuzsanna holds an MA in urban and regional policy from Sciences Po Paris, and received her PhD in the framework of a Marie Curie ITN project “RegPol2”. She has been working on housing issues for more than fifteen years from various perspectives. She was engaged in housing activism in Budapest for about eight years, worked in urban policy making, and then in academia for several years. She is a co-founder of Periféria Policy and Research Center, based in Budapest, Hungary, where she enjoys going back and forth between the above perspectives. An important part of her work is connected to issues of housing finance: both currently existing and potential new forms. 

In recent years, her research has focused on the mechanisms of investment in the housing market and the over-indebtedness of households. Zsuzsanna is working on Work Package 6 of the EqualHouse project.

Simon holds a BSc in Computer Science and an MA in Political Science. His work brings together computational methods and social science approaches, focusing on housing, urban inequalities, and socio-spatial processes. His recent research has examined the revitalization potential of vacant buildings in addressing the housing crisis in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the socio-economic transformations surrounding the renewal of a previously segregated neighbourhood in Budapest, Hungary.