(In alphabetical order)

Jan Willem Duyvendak is full professor in Sociology at the University of Amsterdam since 2003, after he had been director of the Verwey-Jonker Institute for social research (1999-2003) and Professor of Community Development at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. His main fields of research currently are disadvantaged neighborhoods in large cities, community development, multiculturalism, social movements, urban renewal, and “feeling at home”. Some of his publications include Policy, People, and the New Professional. De-professionalisation and Re-professionalisation in Care and Welfare (2006, co-edited) and “Citizen Participation in a Mediated Age: Neighbourhood Governance in the Netherlands” (2008) in International Journal for Urban and Regional Research and “Civilizing the city: populism and revanchist urbanism in Rotterdam” (2008) in Urban Studies (both with J. Uitermark). Moreover, he is currently working on a book on feeling at home and belonging.

Nadya Guimarães is Full Professor at the Department of Sociology of the University of São Paulo, with PhD in Sociology from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, postdoctoral at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning do Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). She also taught at Princeton University, Universidade de Brasília and Universidade Federal da Bahia, and is now the research coordinator of the Center for Metropolitan Studies (São Paulo, Brazil). Her main research concerns include labor markets and occupational trajectories, gender and racial inequalities and comparative studies of employment and unemployment.

Yuri Kazepov, is professor of Urban Sociology and Compared Welfare Systems at the University of Urbino “Carlo Bo”. In 1995-96 he has been Jean Monet Fellow at the European University Institute (Fiesole, I) and held visiting professorshps at the University of Bremen (1998) and University of Lund and Växjö (2008). He is a founding board member of the Network for European Social Policy Analysis (ESPAnet) and the vice-president and treasurer of RC21 of the International Sociological Association. His current research is on “Rescaling social policies towards multilevel governance in Europe”. Among his publications we have (2005) Cities of Europe. Changing contexts, local arrangements and the challenge to social cohesion, Blackwell, Oxford (ed.) and (2007) Che cos’è il Welfare State? Carocci, Rome (with D. Carbone) and (2008) The subsidiarisation of social policies: Actors, processes and impacts. Some reflections on the Italian case from a European perspective, in “European Societies”.

John R. Logan is Professor of Sociology at Brown University (Providence, USA).  He moved to Brown University in 2004, after 24 years at the University at Albany, where he served as Chair of the Department of Sociology and as Director of the Lewis Mumford Center, and Director of the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis. Dr. Logan is co-author, along with Harvey Molotch, of Urban Fortunes: The Political Economy of Place (1987). He has recently worked extensively on Chinese cities, has been an active member of the Urban China Research Network, and has edited The New Chinese City: Globalization and Market Reform (2001) and Urban China in Transition (2008).

Eduardo Marques is Livre-Docente Professor at the Department of Political Science of the University of São Paulo and researcher and Director of the Center for Metropolitan Studies (São Paulo, Brazil). At the moment, at the Center for Metropolitan Studies, develops researches about the role of sociability and social networks in the production of poverty, as well as about favelas and other irregular settlements. His publications include: Assentamentos Precários no Brasil Urbano. Brasília: Ministério das Cidades, 2008; Políticas Públicas no Brasil. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fiocruz, 2007; São Paulo: segregação, pobreza urbana e desigualdade social. São Paulo: Ed. Senac, 2005 and Redes sociais, Instituições e Atores Políticos no governo da cidade de São Paulo. São Paulo: Ed. Annablume, 2003.

Enzo Mingione is Dean of the Faculty of Sociology and Professor of Sociology at the University of Milano-Bicocca (Italy). He has previously taught at the Universities of Messina and Padua. He coordinated the EU Research Training Network URBEurope (Urban Europe between Identity and Change) and is currently the Coordinator of the European Doctorate URBeur "Urban and Local European Studies" at the University of Milano-Bicocca. He was one of the founder editors of IJURR. His main fields of interest are poverty, social exclusion, the informal sector, unemployment, and economic and urban sociology generally. Books in English include Fragmented Societies (1991) and an edited collection, Urban poverty and the Underclass (1996).

Edmond Preteceille is director of research of CNRS, Observatoire Sociologique du Changement at Sciences-Po, Paris (France). He is editor of the journal Societes Contemporaines and a corresponding editor of IJURR. He has published books and articles on urban policies, collective consumption and urban segregation and inequalities. In the last ten years, he has worked on the relationship between economic changes, social structures and segregation in the Paris metropolis with an international comparative perspective. His current project focuses on the interaction of socioeconomic and ethno-racial dimensions in urban inequalities as well as on the relations between social groups in different urban contexts, including in Brazil.

Raquel Rolnik, is a Brazilian architect and urbanist, living in São Paulo, where she started her career in 1979, after receiving her degree from the University of São Paulo. She received her Masters Degree from the same University in 1981. She went on to complete a Ph.D. in Comparative Urban History at the History Department of New York University. She was a Professor of Urban Planning and Management at the Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo of Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas where she coordinated the Graduate Program in Urbanism. In 2008, Raquel became Professor of Urban Planning at the Architectural and Urbanism Faculty of the University fo São Paulo. Raquel Rolnik is an international consultant for urban and housing policy. From 1989-1992, Rolnik held a public post as Director of Urban Planning for the city of São Paulo. She is the author of several articles on urban studies and has published two books: O que é cidade (Brasiliense) and A cidade e a Lei (Studio Nobel).

Francisco Sabatini is a professor at the Catholic University of Chile in Santiago, where he lectures on urban studies and planning and conducts research on residential segregation, value capture and environmental conflicts. He combines his academic work with involvement in NGO-based research and action projects in low-income neighborhoods and villages. He served as an advisor to the Chilean Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs after democracy was restored in 1990, and as a member of the National Advisory Committee on the Environment in the subsequent democratic governments.  His books include Barrios cerrados: Entre la exclusión y la integración residencial (‘Gated communities: Between exclusion and residential integration’, 2004).  He has taught in several countries, mainly in Latin America.

Jeremy Seekings is Professor of Political Studies and Sociology at the University of Cape Town (in South Africa), and is a regular Visiting Professor at Yale University (in the USA.  He has been co-editor of IJURR since 2005.  His books include The UDF: A History of the United Democratic Front in South Africa, 1983-2001 (2000) and Class, Race and Inequality in South Africa (co-authored with Nicoli Nattrass, 2005). 

Ilse Scherer-Warren is Full Professor at the Department of Sociology and Political Science of the Federal University of Santa Catarina and coordinator of the Nucleus of Research on Social Movements (UFSC, Florianopolis, Brazil). Her main fields of interest are social movements, civil society, social networks, social exclusion and inclusion, citizens’ rights and, more recently, affirmative actions.