Mika Simonen

Mika Simonen is a University Researcher at the Institute of Criminology and Legal Policy within the Faculty of Law at the University of Helsinki. His work bridges sociology, criminology, and human-animal interaction studies through innovative methodological approaches.

His research interests focus on social interaction in research interviews, human-dog interaction, functional capacity research, and experimental sociology, particularly through Imitation Game studies. Simonen employs conversation analysis to examine social gerontology, social psychology, and language dynamics in interspecies contexts. His work reveals how social boundaries form through interactional expertise and embodied practices.

Recent publications demonstrate strong trends in multispecies communication and embodied interaction, with increasing focus on human-animal relationships. His research output shows consistent growth from 2006 (1 publication) to 2024 (4 publications), with notable spikes in 2018 (8 publications) and 2021 (9 publications), reflecting productive periods in his career.

Simonen actively contributes to academic discourse through peer review and conference participation, including organizing events like the Lajienvälinen kieli discussion forum and presenting at Sosiologipäivät 2019.

His current research projects include:

• SILE Project (2023-2026): Examining silent agents affected by legislation
• Alcohol, Drug and Gambling Policy Project (2023-2025)
• Interspecies Language Project (2019-2021): Focusing on human-animal interaction
• Know Your Neighbor? (2017-2020): Community interaction study
• Human-Dog Interaction Study (2017-2020) as project manager

Media coverage of his work includes interviews on how interview situations affect assessment outcomes (2017) and positive interpretation of unemployed interview responses (2016), demonstrating public engagement with his research.