Micheline van Riemsdijk

Micheline van Riemsdijk is a Professor and Head of Department in Human Geography at Uppsala University, where she has been employed since 2017. She previously served as Assistant and Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Tennessee. Her academic work spans migration governance, labor market integration of highly skilled migrants and refugees, and the politics of belonging. She has conducted extensive fieldwork across Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Poland, India, and New Zealand.

Van Riemsdijk earned her PhD in Human Geography from the University of Colorado and an MA in Scandinavian Languages and Literatures from the University of Minnesota. She has held visiting scholar positions at prestigious institutions including the Käte Hamburger Kolleg/Center for Global Cooperation Research at the University of Duisburg-Essen, NOVA (Norwegian Social Research), FAFO in Oslo, the Center for Migration at the University of Oxford, and the Center for Migration Research at the University of Warsaw.

Her research focuses on how institutions and actors shape migration experiences and how migration regulations are formed, contested, and transformed. She examines the labor market integration of highly skilled refugees, governance of international migration across multiple scales, and place-making practices of migrants. Her work employs qualitative methods to explore the complex interplay between migration policies and lived experiences.

Analysis of her recent publications reveals a consistent focus on multi-level governance frameworks, with particular attention to highly skilled refugees' integration challenges. Her work spans across migration policy analysis, workplace integration studies, and comparative refugee integration models. The research demonstrates increasing attention to intersectional approaches examining how gender, professional background, and national contexts shape migration experiences.

• Excellent Teacher award recognizing pedagogical excellence
• Research funded by Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (Forte)
• US National Science Foundation funding for migration governance project
• Research Council of Norway funding
• Polish government research grants

Van Riemsdijk has secured significant research funding from multiple national and international sources. She currently leads projects examining Sweden's EU Blue Card implementation and highly skilled migrant recruitment and retention. Her completed projects include the Social Integration of Highly Skilled Refugees in Sweden (2019-2022) and studies on aging among immigrant populations. She has edited multiple special journal issues and co-edited the book Rethinking International Skilled Migration (Routledge, 2017).

She actively collaborates with international research teams and serves as a visiting scholar at various institutions. Her work connects with policy-making through engagements with Delmi (Migration Studies Delegation) and Tillväxtverket (Swedish Agency for Economic and Regional Growth).