Dr. Mateusz Karolak is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Sociology, University of Wrocław in Poland. His main research interests are the sociology of work and the sociology of migration, including return migration. He is a graduate of the Interdepartmental Individual Humanistic Studies at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań and alumnus of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie ITN "Changing Employment" network (2013-2016). In the ENDURE project, he is the leader of the Polish team (PI) co-responsible for research on essential worker and discourse analysis. Previously, he worked as a researcher in the PREWORK project "Young precarious workers in Poland and Germany: a comparative sociological study of working and living conditions, social awareness and civic participation" (2016-2019). From 2019-2021, he led the Polish-German REPOP grant ('Right-wing populism among young Germans and Poles: Analysis of biographical motives for support of right-wing parties and organisations'). He has been on research fellowships in Belgium, Germany, the UK and the USA. Since 2020, coordinator of the international master's degree programme: Sociology - Intercultural Mediation. He is also a member of the editorial board of the scientific journal "Theoretical Practice".

For more information on his publications and research: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Mateusz_Karolak