People

Nihan Albayrak-Aydemir

Nihan is a postdoctoral researcher in the ReligSpace team, leading the fieldwork in London. She received her PhD in Social Psychology from the London School of Economics and Political Science and currently works at the Open University in the United Kingdom. In her research, she investigates social identity dynamics and intergroup relations underlying prosocial attitudes and behaviours, especially within the context of global emergencies, migration, and higher education. She is also interested in meta-science and studies the ways in which unequal power structures and poor research and teaching practices influence the production of academic knowledge and the development of academics. To date, she has been awarded several prestigious grants from the British Psychological Society, the European Association of Social Psychology, the Psychology Postgraduate Affairs Group, and the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

Allon Vishkin

Allon is a postdoctoral researcher on the ReligSpace team and a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan. His research focuses on differences in emotion and motivation across cultures and acculturating groups. Allon’s work has been published in Emotion, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. He received the President’s Scholarship from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2016-2019) and a postdoctoral fellowship from the Israel Science Foundation (2020–2022). Allon enjoys playing chess and engaging in a good argument.

Google Scholar | avishkin@umich.edu

Amit Birenboim

Amit is a senior lecturer at the department of geography and the Center for Urban Innovation at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He completed his PhD studies in 2016 at the Hebrew University after which he started a post-doctorate in the Healthy Urban Living research group at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. Between the years 2018-2021 he served as a senior lecturer at the Department of Geography and Human Environment at Tel Aviv University. Amit’s research focuses on human spatial behavior in various contexts such as health, mobility and transportation, leisure and tourism. He is passionate about understanding how people behave in space, how they interact with their social and physical environments and how we can make urban environments better and people who live in them happier.

Personal Website | LinkedIn | abirenboim@tauex.tau.ac.il

Elodie Druez

Elodie is a postdoctoral researcher on the ReligSpace team, responsible for the French fieldwork in Paris. Her research focuses on experiences of racism and discrimination, political behaviors, and politicization. She is particularly interested in sub-Saharan migration and the Black middle class. Her work has been published in Terrains & Travaux and in Tracés. She received a research grant from the City of Paris on xenophobia and anti-Semitism (2018). Her PhD thesis is entitled "Is Blackness political? Racialization and politicization of university graduates of sub-Saharan origin in Paris and London" (2020). Elodie loves singing Greek and Turkish songs and salsa dancing.

Personal Website | elodie.druez@sciencespo.fr

Hila Levit

Hila is a doctoral researcher on the ReligSpace team, responsible for conducting the fieldwork in Tel Aviv. Her PhD research focuses on art and culture in marginalized neighborhoods of the city and their effect on physical and social environments. She is highly interested in the emergence of geographical hubs in the city, in which varied ethnic, religious, and cultural groups act. Hila is a trained urban planner with practical experience working in both the private and public sectors. She received her master's degree in urban planning (summa cum laude) from the Department of Geography and Human Environment at the Porter School of the Environment, Tel Aviv University. Her interdisciplinary MA thesis portrayed a holistic and complex understanding of how musical spaces emerge in cities. She is a former researcher at Planning for the Environment with Communities (PECLAB), Tel Aviv University. In her free time, Hila enjoys playing the drums, practicing Iyengar Yoga, reading books, and petting cats.

ORCiD | LinkedIn | hilalevit@mail.tau.ac.il

Ilona Hillel-Goldner

Ilona is a Graduate Student in the Advanced Research-Studies Program ("Telem") of the Political Science department. She earned her B.A. in Political Science and Communication from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her main fields of interest are human values and morality. She wishes to understand how moral justification may help in overcoming ethical issues in both private and public life. In her free time, she loves to put loud music on so she could sing and dance while cooking gourmet dinners.

Nilli Maderer

Nilli is an MA researcher on the ReligSpace project. Her MA thesis focuses on the influence of Muslim priming on attitudes regarding minority groups in a conflicted society. Nilli holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy and political sciences from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her main fields of interest are spatial priming, protests, and how these shape in-group and out-group attitudes in Israel. Nilli is the CEO of a workers' organization, a feminist activist, and is involved in municipal activities in Jerusalem. In her free time, she loves to do pottery, travel, and practice yoga.

nilli.maderer@mail.huji.ac.il

Nonna Mayer

Nonna is a research collaborator, responsible for the ReligSpace French fieldwork, and a research professor emerita of CNRS at the Centre d’études européennes et de politique comparée at Sciences Po, Paris. Her main research topics are electoral behavior, political participation, radical right populism, racism, and antisemitism. She coordinates the annual Racism Barometer of the National Commission for Human Rights and has published numerous articles in leading political science journals, as well as major books on the French far right and political behavior. Nonna has received several prestigious international awards, including the UEACES (University Association for Contemporary European Studies) Lifetime Achievement Award (2019), and is a Doctor honoris causa of Brussels Free University (ULB). She is a former president of the French Political Science Association and former visiting professor at NYU and the Stanford Overseas program. Nonna loves street art, crime stories, classical guitar, and Middle Eastern food (eating and cooking). Her favorite sport is swimming.

Twitter: @mayer_nonna

Personal Website | ORCiD | Google Scholar | nonna.mayer@sciencespo.fr

Orni Livny

Orni is the administrator on the ReligSpace team and a postdoctoral fellow at the Political Psychology Lab, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her research focuses on immigration and politics in Europe, and she is particularly interested in immigrants’ political behavior. Orni holds a PhD in political sciences from Tel Aviv University (2020), where she researched the positions of Social Democratic parties towards immigration. For her research, she interviewed former immigration ministers and politicians in London and Stockholm. Orni is a former senior news editor with Channel 2 news, Israel. She loves traveling, hiking, and discovering new places. In her free time, she listens to podcasts or watches (too many) TV series.

LinkedIn | Livny.orni@mail.huji.ac.il

Pazit Ben-Nun Bloom

Pazit, ReligSpace’s principal investigator, is a professor and the director of the Political Psychology Laboratory at the Department of Political Science at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, an Academic Visitor at CRASSH & Clare Hall, Cambridge, and an Associate Member at Nuffield College, Oxford. She studies the political psychology of enduring values and urban context by introducing comparative experiments and multi-method designs. She is the recipient of the Erik Erikson Early Career Award, recognizing exceptional achievement in the field of political psychology (2019), and she has received over $2,000,000 in grants, including the ERC starting grant (ReligSpace), ISF, NSF, and Marie Curie, among others. She has published over 40 articles and chapters in leading political science, social psychology, public policy, conflict resolution, and environmental journals, such as The American Political Science Review, the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, the British Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Personality and Social Psychology Bulleting, and Political Psychology. Pazit writes fiction, reads compulsively (when her two young boys allow it), dances Zumba, grows three types of peppers, and is always excited to travel new roads.

Personal Website | LinkedIn | Google Scholar | pazit.bennun@mail.huji.ac.il | Curriculum Vitae

Rasha Kardosh

Rasha is a postdoctoral researcher in the ReligSpace project at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Broadly constructed, her research focuses on the cognitive underpinnings of ideologies and social perceptions. Rasha completed her PhD in 2021 at the Hebrew University. During her time in graduate school Rasha has received the Hebrew University Presidential Fellowship, The Hoffman Fellowship for social leadership in academia and the Israeli Higher Education Council Fellowship. She loves conversing with interesting people, exploring new places, drinking unhealthy amounts of coffee, reading and eating (also cooking, only if absolutely necessary).

rasha.kardosh@mail.huji.ac.il

Shani Fachter

Shani is a postdoctoral researcher on the ReligSpace team and the project administrator. Her research focuses on the effect of political activists’ presence on intergroup violence at friction points during ongoing conflict. In her research, Shani uses experimental methodology including laboratory experiments and cutting-edge technology such as virtual reality equipment. Shani’s research interests are intergroup violence, ideology and political activism, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She has published peer-reviewed articles in the Journal of Conflict Resolution and Behaviour & Information Technology. Shani enjoys watching documentaries, sipping a good cup of coffee, and swimming in lakes.