Alex Lepe joined the SOEP as a postdoctoral researcher in February 2025. He holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Edinburgh and a PhD in Epidemiology from the University Medical Center Groningen. His research focuses on health inequalities, with particular attention to how social and structural factors shape population health. At DIW, his work spans projects on pandemic...
Philipp Lersch is Associate Professor of Sociology of Social Policy in the Department of Social Sciences at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and research group leader at the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). His main research interests are in social inequalities over and between life courses of individuals in divergent institutional contexts focusing on the family, wealth, and...
Head Life Course and Inequality; Head of Research Group German Socio-Economic Panel study
assessor juris (Esq.) - doctoral thesis re German Constitutional Law and cultural responsibilities of the State LL.M. at Boston Univ. (USA) former experience: Berlin media law firm - legal employee at the Hessische Rundfunk (public broadcaster) in Frankfurt am Main - scientific employee at the Brunswick European Law School at the Ostfalia in Brunswick/Wolfenbuettel and at the Institute for...
Heike Link leads the Transportation Research Team. She joined DIW in 1992 after studies in Mathematical Economics and a PhD thesis on dynamic input-output models. Her research interest is the econometric analysis of issues mainly in transport infrastructure. Heike has been in charge for a variety of national and international research and consultancy projects on infrastructure issues, the economic...
Researcher Energy, Transportation, Environment; Head of the Transportation research area Energy, Transportation, Environment
Lotte Maaßen is a PhD student at the DIW Graduate Center and the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP). Her research interests are in the area of wealth and income inequality. Current research projects focus on the role of inheritances and parental background for the distribution of wealth in Germany and on gender gaps in capital incomes. Lotte has a master's degree in economics from Freie Universität...
Marianna Magagnoli is a postdoctoral researcher at the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP) since September 2025. She holds a PhD from the University of Barcelona (UB) and the Barcelona Institute of Economics (IEB). Her research lies at the intersection of urban, transport, and environmental economics. In particular, she studies the implications of improving environmental friendliness in cities on real...
Tana is a doctoral student at the Graduate Centre. She started out at the DIW in May 2023 as a predoc at the Entrepreneurship Research Group. She holds a Bachelor’s and Master’s Degree in Economics and Econometrics from the University of Nottingham and a Master’s Degree in International Economics from the University of Tübingen. Her research interests predominantly relate primarily to applied...
Andrea Marchitto is a research associate at SOEP and has been working on the SUARE project (Longitudinal Study of Refugees from Ukraine in Germany) since 2023. He studied political science at the Free University of Berlin. His research interests include health, discrimination, and integration of migrants into the German society, with particular focus on refugees and their families.
Gisela is a PhD candidate at the Berlin School of Economics and the DIW Berlin, a research assistant at the University of Zurich and Director of the Graduate Applications International Network (GAIN). She holds a BA in Business and Economics from the University of Zurich and an MSc in Statistics and Information Management from NOVA University Lisbon. Before starting her PhD, she worked as a...
Sonja is a doctoral student at the DIW Berlin since 2025. She holds a master's degree in economics from the University of Helsinki and a bachelor's degree in economics and business administration from Aalto University in Finland. Her research interests fall in the areas of inequality, public economics, and political economy.
Dr. Mariel McKone Leonard is a researcher with more than ten years’ experience in mixed methods survey research. She specializes in research with small, rare, and vulnerable populations, as well as conducting research within sensitive contexts. Mariel is Project Coordinator for the Surveying Panel Participants’ Network Members: Integration of Egocentric Data Collection and Respondent-Driven...
Dennis Meiser-von Schmädel works in the area of online communications. His focus is on editing the institute's website and intranet. He also oversees the production of video blogs, podcasts, and livestreams. He is the contact person for accessibility issues.
Lukas Menkhoff is Research Associate in the Socio-Economic Panel at DIW Berlin, Professor (em.) of Economics at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and member of the Finance Group at HU Berlin. His research focus is on International Finance, in particular foreign exchange markets, and Financial Development, including the impact of financial education, for example in Africa.
Until 2023 he was head of...
