Research

My educational background is as a PhD researcher focusing on minority themes. Bringing minority voices to the fore, curiosity-driven interdisciplinary boundary crossing, the societal impact of research, and the interaction between science and art are central elements of my researcher profile. Taking student diversity into account and using inclusive teaching methods motivate me in my teaching work.

Since late spring 2026, I have worked at the Centre for the History of Experience at Tampere University. I study the philanthropist Cely Mechelin (1866–1950) and her networks from a queer historical perspective. Through my research, I seek to diversify our national narrative by shedding light on the efforts of people identified as women in historical sources to build civil society. This work laid the foundation for our present welfare state. My research is funded by the Finnish Cultural Foundation and the Association of Finnish Nonfiction Writers.

I also worked full-time at Tampere University during 2019–2023, at the Research Council of Finland-funded Centre of Excellence in the History of Experiences (HEX), as part of the Lived Religion research group led by Raisa Toivo. Supported by Research Council of Finland postdoctoral funding, I developed a method combining perspectives from the history of experience, queer theory, and trans studies to identify the diversity of gender, sexuality, and relationships in historical sources, particularly in religious contexts. My primary research material consisted of the mysticism of seventeenth-century French Ursuline nuns.

I graduated with a PhD from the University of Helsinki in January 2016, majoring in General History. In my doctoral dissertation, I examined the social work of the French religious order Les Filles de la Charité in the seventeenth century from the perspectives of gender, power, and values. My supervisors, pillars of support and role models, were Professor Emerita of European History Laura Kolbe and Professor of Church History Päivi Salmesvuori. My book based on the dissertation, The Power of Religious Societies in Shaping Early Modern Society and Identities, published by Amsterdam University Press in 2020, can be found here.

I have worked as a postdoctoral researcher since completing my doctorate, and I received my first major research grant from the Foundations’ Post Doc Pool. Supported by this grant, I worked at the University of Tours in the interdisciplinary Renaissance research center Centre d’études supérieures de la Renaissance during the 2017–2018 academic year. The experience was unforgettable in many ways, both as a researcher and as a queer person with a family living in a Catholic country.

In 2018–2019, I served as principal investigator of the Kone Foundation-funded science-art project “Fashion and Its Critique in Baroque Paris.” Our team included PhD, historian and author Riikka-Maria Rosenberg, fashion designer Carolina Forss, photographer Emma Sarpaniemi, and virtual technology entrepreneur Joonas Pöllä (Peili Vision Oy). As outcomes of the project, we published the non-fiction book Korsetti ja krusifiksi. Vaikutusvaltaisia barokin ajan pariisittaria (Gaudeamus, 2019), which includes literary storytelling, as well as a mini fashion collection inspired by the Baroque period, fashion photography, and a virtual reality world.

In addition, Riikka-Maria and I have created two pilot episodes for a historical television series for Yleisradio and co-written a mini-play about a nun and a courtesan.

The Faculty of Arts at the University of Helsinki awarded me the title of Docent in History in December 2024.

Below you will find selected publications and media appearances.

You can find my CV and List of Publications here (updated August 2026)