People

Virve Marionneau, Dr.Soc.Sci
Deputy Research Director and Head of group
University Researcher
Faculty of Social Sciences
virve.marionneau@helsinki.fi
Virve Marionneau is a university researcher and a visiting researcher at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL). Her research focuses on gambling harms and the political economy of gambling. Her on-going projects focus on building empirical, theoretical, and comparative research evidence to improve gambling regulation and harm prevention. Virve leads the CEACG during 2023.

Jenni Kuisma, M.Soc.Sci
Coordinator
Faculty of Social Sciences
jenni.kuisma@helsinki.fi
Tel. +358 504057979
Jenni Kuisma is the coordinator of CEACG. She is a recent graduate on European and Nordic Studies at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests include governance and power in political decision-making, and policies related to the welfare system.

Sébastien Berret, M.Soc.Sci
Researcher
Faculty of Social Sciences
sebastien.berret@helsinki.fi
Sébastien Berret is conducting a PhD in sociology at the University of Helsinki. His thesis investigates how the gambling surplus efficiency of gambling suppliers is produced, how it depends on their cost structure and the institutional context, and how these might affect gambling-related harm. Berret specializes in comparing European lotteries. He is also involved in the Political Economy of Gambling project since 2018.

Michael Egerer, Dr.Soc.Sci, Title of docent
University Researcher
Faculty of Social Sciences
michael.egerer@helsinki.fi
Tel. +358 2941 23919
Egerer’s research interests address gambling, gambling regulations and the concept of addiction. He is currently working on the adjustment of low-risk gambling guidelines for the Finnish context, as well as studying the opening of the new casino in Tampere, and the regulation of online gambling. While mastering a wide selection of methodologies, Egerer is an expert in the focus group technique. He is developing the application of sociological systems theory in the field of addiction and gambling research. Egerer is the chair of the Finnish Association for Alcohol, Drug and Gambling Research.

Matilda Hellman
Dr.Soc.Sci, Docent
Research Director
Faculty of Social Sciences
matilda.hellman@helsinki.fi
Tel. +358 40 7600713
Head of group, 2016-2022. Matilda Hellman is part time affiliated with CEACG as researcher. She supervises several doctoral students and serves as editor in chief for the Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (NAD). She also leads projects concerned with gambling marketing and alcohol policy and during 2022-2023, she is developing the theory of epistemic projects with a research grant from the Gyllenberg foundation. Matilda’s main affiliation is as professor of sociology at Uppsala university (matilda.hellman@uu.se).

Nina Jokirinne, M.Soc.Sci
Project Planner
nina.jokirinne@helsinki.fi
Nina Jokirinne’s background is in population research. At the moment her research mainly consists of gambling related studies, for example gambling addiction phenomenon and its’ treatment in Finland from the perspectives of the public and professionals. She also takes part in Online marketing of gambling -project and Crypto trading, young peoples’ financial literacy and gamblification -project. At general level, she is interested in behavioral addictions and in the problematic relationship of equality and inequality.

Paula Jääskeläinen, M.Soc.Sci
Researcher
Faculty of Social Sciences
paula.p.jaaskelainen@helsinki.fi
Paula Jääskeläinen is a doctoral student. Her study focuses on the upcoming Tampere casino and its social, economic and political implications. In her thesis she combines perspectives from gambling studies and urban sociology.

Veera Kankainen, M.Soc.Sci
Researcher
Faculty of Social Sciences
veera.kankainen@helsinki.fi
Kankainen is a doctoral student and her thesis inquires into the role of civil society organizations as the beneficiaries of the Finnish gambling policy system. Besides civil society and gambling policies, Kankainen’s research interests also include health and welfare policies, governance and power relations, the voluntary sector, and the financing and provision of social services.

Anu Katainen, Dr.Soc.Sci,
University Lecturer
Faculty of Social Sciences
anu.h.katainen@helsinki.fi
Tel. +358 2941 23891
Katainen’s work covers public health and consumption in the intersection of social inequalities, substance use and health promotion efforts. Her doctoral dissertation (2011) concerned the social stratification of smoking behavior, and she has since studied distinctions related to culture and class in adolescents’ meaning-making of alcohol. Katainen is a university lecturer in social policy.

Tom Kettunen, M.Soc.Sci
Editor, Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs
tom.kettunen@helsinki.fi
Tom Kettunen is the editor of Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs since 2012. His background is in philosophy and his academic interests include science publishing, publishing ethics, lifestyles and addictions. Kettunen is a member of the editorial board of Nordic Welfare Research.

Mikaela Lindeman, M.Soc.Sci
Researcher, Project Planning Officer
Lindeman, with a background in political science joined CEACG in 2017 to work with the Online Marketing of Alcohol-project (OMA), which looked at online marketing and advertising of alcohol in Sweden and in Finland in the light of recent policy changes. Currently, she is involved in the Online Marketing of Gambling-project (OMG), comparing marketing of gambling services and commercial communications on social media sites in Sweden and Finland, among other projects.

Janne Nikkinen, Dr. theol., Title of Docent
University Researcher
Faculty of Social Sciences
janne.nikkinen@helsinki.fi
Janne Nikkinen has over 50 academic publications, including several jointly authored and edited books about gambling. His research interest related to gambling spans a range of issues, from regulatory and policy affairs to the prevention of gambling harm. He is also Chair of the Ethics Committee at Helsinki University Hospital (HUS) and Vice-Chair of the National Advisory Board on Social Welfare and Health Care Ethics (ETENE).

Pekka Sulkunen
Professor Emeritus
Faculty of Social Sciences
pekka.sulkunen@helsinki.fi
Tel. +358 504482050
Professor emeritus Pekka Sulkunen founded the CEACG group in 2011. He has authored several books on social theory, cultural studies, addictions and preventive social policy, including The Saturated Society: Regulating Risk and Lifestyle in Consumer Culture (1st edition Sage 2009; 2nd edition Unigrafia 2016). President of the European Sociological Association 2011-2013.

Mika Tsupari, M.Soc.Sci
Doctoral Researcher
Faculty of Social Sciences
Tsupari is a doctoral student in the field of sociology. His thesis focuses on psychedelics in Finland from the perspective of set and setting, motives, meanings, the culture linked to psychedelics and well-being of the users. His research interests include addiction research and drug culture, interactions between groups and individuals, and well-being in general.

Josefin Westermarck, M. Soc.Sci 
Doctoral researcher
Faculty of Social Sciences
josefin.westermarck@helsinki.fi
Josefin Westermarck is a doctoral student. Her thesis focuses on how vulnerable agency has been represented and recognized in the most recent Finnish alcohol law reforms (2018, 1994). She examines the epistemic i.e. knowledge-based tensions in the evidence-base of alcohol laws, from the perspectives of classical sociological discourse analysis methods and theories from sociology of law. Besides regulation and governance studies Westermarcks research interests also include Finnish drug culture and internet ethnography.

AFFILIATES:

Franca Beccaria, Dr.Alcohology
Research Director
Eclectica Institute for Research and Training (Turin, Italy)
beccaria@eclectica.it
Franca Beccaria is the head of the research unit at Eclectica Institute for research and training that she founded in 1998 in Turin, Italy. She is an internationally well-known sociologist, working on drinking culture, drug consumption, addiction, lifestyles and policies. She has participated in many cross-countries studies and led several research projects with about 150 publications. She has the Italian qualification of Associate professor in sociology and the position of docent at the University of Helsinki. She is the vice director of the European Masters in Alcohol and Drug Studies (EMDAS) at the University of Piemonte Orientale (IT).

Sara Rolando, Dr.Soc.Sci
Researcher
Eclectica Institute for Research and Training (Turin, Italy)
rolando@eclectica.it
Sara Rolando has been working as a social researcher at Eclectica since 2007. After several years of collaboration with Finnish research teams, she achieved her doctoral degree at the University of Helsinki, Finland, with a thesis comparing youth drinking cultures in different geographies. An expert in qualitative, web-based, and comparative methods, her main research interests are alcohol, gambling, drugs, and other addictive behaviours, which she has been investigating from different perspectives including cultures, careers, prevention, policies. She is currently working in PolEG 2018-2022 project on gambling revenues in seven European countries.

Sanna Rönkä, Dr.Soc.Sci
Senior Specialist
Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare (THL)
sanna.ronka@thl.fi
Rönkä’s current research projects focus on social aspects of drug use. She employs both quantitative and qualitative methods in her work, and operates in the fields of sociology, social epidemiology and criminology. Her PhD thesis examined polydrug-related deaths in the context of pharmaceuticalisation. Currently she is also responsible for drug monitoring at the Finnish Institute of Health and Welfare (THL). Rönkä has a broad experience in coordinating several expert networks. Her research interests concern also use and harm of other substances and addictive behaviours, and specifically their societal implications.

Riikka Perälä, Dr.Soc.Sci
Coordinator of Development and Advocacy Work
Finnish Association for Substance Abuse Prevention Ombudsman Activity
riikka.perala@ehyt.fi
Riikka Perälä’s research interests cover the transformations in the government-civil society relationship in Finland in the beginning of 21st century and the position of the most marginalized citizen groups in these transformations. Her latest publications concerned opioid substitution treatment and ‘housing first’ initiatives in the field of mental health and substance abuse treatment. In her current position, she follows actively the development of national policies and legislation related to substance abuse treatment.

Johan Svensson, Dr.Soc.Sci.
The Swedish Council for Information on Alcohol and Other Drugs (CAN), and Department of Public Health Sciences, Stockholm University
johan.svensson@can.se
Johan Svensson has a background in Public Health Science. His research has come to focus especially on two areas; trends in youth alcohol consumption and gambling among youth. Since 2017 he investigates online marketing of alcohol and gambling. Svensson is the principal executive investigator for the Swedish part of the Online Marketing of Alcohol (OMA) project. The project looks at online marketing and advertising of alcohol in Sweden and in Finland in the light of recent policy changes, asking whether regulation of online advertising is possible and relevant from a public health perspective.