My main research interests concern questions pertaining to Jewish life in the Nordic countries today, cultural encounters and interreligious dialogue, ethnographic research methodology with cultural studies. I am especially interested in the relationship between the arts (particularly music) and religion. Chronologically, I work predominantly with contemporary religion, combining ethnographic research methods with content analysis and approaches deriving from the philosophy of religion.

I was the Director of the Donner Institute for Research in Religion and Culture, Turku, Finland (2013-2024). Editor, together with Associate Professor Svante Lundgren (Lund University), of the scholarly journal Nordisk judaistik / Scandinavian Jewish Studies (2016-2024) and of Approaching Religion (2011-2024).

I was the director of the research project Boundaries of Jewish Identities in Contemporary Finland finansed by the Polin Institute (2018-2022) and of the EU-funded research project Recovira – Religious Communities in the Virtual Age as part of the Finnish research team at Åbo Akademi University (2023-2024).

During the years 2024-27 I also take part in the research project Exploring the Contested Construction of Sense of Safety in Religious Spaces at the University of Helsinki, PI Prof. Anne Birgitta Pessi (funded by the Research Council of Finland).

Education 

• Docent (Associate Professor), History of Religions, Uppsala University (29.5 2018). 
• Docent (Associate Professor), Study of Religions, Åbo Akademi University (11.8 2006).

• Doctor of Theology, Åbo Akademi University (30.11 2018). Jewish studies
• Doctor of Philosophy, Åbo Akademi University (18.6 2004). Study of Religions
• Master of Theology, Åbo Akademi University (31.5 2015). Jewish studies
• Master of Arts, Åbo Akademi University (12.5 2000). Study of Religions

• Information Studies (60 credits), Åbo Akademi University (qualification for librarian), 2012.