Social Sciences: Social Statistics & Demography, University of Southampton

I joined Social Sciences, University of Southampton in February 2009. Between 2003 and 2008, I was a researcher in the Central European Forum for Migration and Population Research (CEFMR) in Warsaw. In the period 2001–2003, I worked in the Demographic Unit of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (UN ICTY) in the Hague, analysing population consequences of the 1990s armed conflicts in the Balkans.

I hold PhD in economics (with specialisation in demography) and an MSc Quantitative Methods and Information Systems, both obtained from the Warsaw School of Economics.

Professional activities

• associate member of CEFMR
• member of the editorial committee of Studia Demograficzne
• member of the Scientific Review Board of Demographic Research

My research interests focus on the applications of quantitative methods in demography, especially in migration and population forecasting, agent-based population modelling, demography of conflict and violence and international migration studies, as well as on research on population ageing, mortality, links between population and the environment and demographic uncertainty. In particular, I am interested in the methods of mathematical statistics, especially in the Bayesian approach, including econometric modelling, stochastic processes and decision-making under uncertainty.

Work in progress

Springer has just published my book entitled Forecasting International Migration in Europe: A Bayesian View. As migration is the most volatile component of population change, any demographic forecasts are in need of suitable predictions of future migration flows, together with an appropriate uncertainty assessment. In the book I present an overview of existing theories, methods and models used for forecasting migration flows, followed by a proposition of a forecasting framework based on the Bayesian approach, and then a discussion of the predictions from the point of view of forecast users (decision-makers).
 
In terms of more general research activities, I am contributing to the works of the ESRC Centre for Population Change (CPC). Specifically, I participate in the research of strand 4 of the CPC, devoted to 'Modelling population growth and enhancing the evidence base for policy', as well as in an EPSRC project Care Life Cycle, devoted to the application of methods of the complexity science in the areas of demography, health and social care. In the latter project, I am leading a work strand on uncertainty in agent-based models of population.
 
Between 2009 and 2012, I was also participating in a research project, IMEM (Integrated Modelling of European Migration), funded by the NORFACE programme. The aim of the project was to model population flows among EU and EFTA countries and to assess the uncertainty of the estimates by means of Bayesian statistics, formally incorporating the expert judgement.