Laura Scheinert Idodo (she/hers)

About me:
Broad research specialisms

Judicial training, training evaluation, corpus-based judicial decision analysis using natural language processing and machine learning, refugees and asylum, migration and integration.

Interests:

Judicial training, adult education, mixed methods research, impact evaluation, migration and integration

Qualifications:

BA Sociology, University of Mannheim (Germany)

MA Sociology and Social Research, Newcastle University (UK)

Career:

I graduated in sociology from the University of Mannheim (Germany) in 2014 and subsequently successfully completed a Master’s programme in Sociology and Social Research at Newcastle University (2014-2015). My MA thesis examined definitions of the ‘refugee’ based on the case of Germany’s so-called Temporary Humanitarian Admission Programmes (THAP) for Syrian refugees set up between 2013 and 2015. Two publications developed out of this work (with movements and the German Bundeszentrale fuer politische Bildung).

From 2016 to 2018 I worked as an evaluator at the German Institute for Development Evaluation in Bonn, Germany, as part of the team evaluating the German development volunteer service ‘weltwaerts’ (evaluation report).

All through my BA and MA studies as well as my work experience, I have developed and sustained an interest in issues around migration, asylum, citizenship and integration, looking in particular at the ways in which legal provisions play out in practice.

From September 2018 to September 2024, I undertook PhD studies at the University of Exeter, exploring how judicial training supports judges in the task of determining immigration and refugee status decisions.