Meet the Team
Our Collaborators
I am a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Sociology and Junior Research Fellow in Linacre College at the University of Oxford. Before joining the University of Oxford I completed my PhD in Social Policy at the University of York.
My research is primarily quantitative in nature, utilising existing data, often with a comparative focus.
Research projects and interests:
My research is focused on investigating the impacts of policy on people's well-being, and how policy can best support people to live fulfilling lives.
These are the overarching themes:
Subjective well-being:
What are the trends in subjective well-being and its influences? How important are the schools we attend and homes we live in for subjective well-being?
Housing policy
What are the consequences of unaffordable housing for people's health and well-being? How do different countries manage their housing markets to minimise housing problems? How does housing tenure and its impact vary across countries? What are the impacts of Right to Buy on those that buy their home?
Education policy
How does the focus on educational attainment characteristic of modern education policy affect students and teachers? How can education policy maximise both well-being and attainment? What do education systems look like in different countries and what are their outcomes?
Health
How can social policies maximise health and minimise health inequalities? How can the health sector work with other policy sectors to improve people's lives?
Postdoctoral Researcher in History of Public Health and Welfare Systems
Gregori Galofré-Vilà is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the History of Public Health and Welfare Systems working with Professor David Stuckler. His research interests broadly focus on public health and social protection systems during periods of economic crises. He has published in the history of health and welfare, including anthropometric history, and environmental determinants on health.
Gregori completed his PhD in Economic and Social History at the University of Southampton.
Postdoctoral Researcher in Comparative Welfare Systems
Research Areas: Social Inequality, Health and Well-Being.
Rachel Loopstra's research focuses on understanding social welfare policy as a determinant of population health and well-being. Her interests broadly focus on material deprivation, examining how social welfare expansion and retrenchment influence food insecurity and housing insecurity, and the social and health consequences of these experiences.
She joined the Department of Sociology in February 2014 to work with Professor David Stuckler. Current work focuses on evaluating the human costs of recently implemented austerity measures in the UK. In particular, she has been evaluating how welfare reforms and local authority budget cuts relate to homelessness, food bank expansion, and child malnutrition, and the impact of welfare sanctioning on employment and welfare caseloads.
Rachel completed her PhD in Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto. Her doctoral research focused on understanding drivers and outcomes of food insecurity in Canada.
Postdoctoral Researcher in Health Economics
Research Areas: Health and Well-Being, Quantitative Methods
Veronica Toffolutti joined the department in August 2015 as a postdoctoral researcher working on an ESRC-funded project with Professor David Stuckler. Her current work focuses primarily on evaluating the health effects of social welfare programmes using natural experiment methodologies.
Prior to her time at Oxford, she worked at the University of East Anglia, examining the impact of macroeconomic conditions on health and mortality, and completed her Ph.D. in Economics and Management at the University of Padua (Italy).