Anja Simonsen admitted to the Young Academy
Associate Professor Anja Simonsen has been admitted to the Young Academy under the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences and Letters. The academy is an independent platform for young researchers which offers some of the country’s most talented young researchers a public voice.
The Young Academy has admitted eight new members, all of whom are outstanding young researchers in Denmark in their respective fields. Among the inductees is Anja Simonsen, who is an associate professor at the Department of Anthropology at the Faculty of Social Sciences.
Anja Simonsen researches Somali migrants and refugees in the Horn of Africa, en route and in Europe, focusing on topics such as migration, social invisibility, future prospects, clan- and family relations within and across borders, diaspora humanitarianism, European Search & Rescue operations and biometric technologies.
Currently, Anja Simonsen is Principal Investigator on the ERC Starting Grant project The Social Life of Dead Bodies. A new ethnographic approach to migrant deaths in and around the Mediterranean Sea (SOLID). The project is active from 2025-2029 and explores the social life of deceased migrants in and around the Mediterranean Sea by bringing together forensic, social, economic, humanitarian, and political actors and perspectives on the same unidentified bodies of deceased migrants.