Meet the Team

Professor Stroma Cole is P-I of FUTOURWORK, based at University of Westminster. A leading authority on tourism and gender relations with over 60 publications, she combines her academic career with action research and charity work as co-director of Equality in Tourism. Stroma was named a Women’s Leader for Impact and Inclusion at the IWTTF awards in 2026, one of Pulse Travel’s most influential women in travel, and one of the top 50 most influential global educators in tourism and hospitality in 2025.

https://www.westminster.ac.uk/

Helen Farrell is a Senior Lecturer in Tourism at the University of Westminster and an experienced academic leader in tourism, events and planning. Her research focuses on sustainable tourism, heritage, human–environment relations and community engagement, with a strong interest in rural contexts, leisure, and pedagogical innovation.

Burçe is a research and project management professional with extensive experience in proposal development, international partnerships and research funding. She is currently working at the University of Westminster as Project Manager for FUTOURWORK. Previously, she worked as a Research Development Manager at the University of Liverpool and as an EU Affairs Expert at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey.

With Masters degrees in Postcolonial Literature and Human Rights, Michela is currently a PhD candidate in Law at the University of Westminster and Research Associate on FUTOURWORK. Her work combines first-hand experience in the tourism industry with trade union activism, explored from a gender perspective.

Kavita is the Digital Marketing & Communications Officer for Equality in Tourism, a non-profit dedicated to advocating for greater gender equality in the industry. She loves helping impact-led organisations make a difference through their communications. This combined with experience at a regional tourism board drew her to this role and the chance to create positive impact in the industry.

https://www.equalityintourism.org/

Dr. Stanislav Ivanov is the Director of Zangador Research Institute, Bulgaria. He is the Founder and (Co-)Editor-in-chief of two academic journals: European Journal of Tourism Research (http://ejtr.vumk.eu) and ROBONOMICS: The Journal of the Automated Economy (https://journal.robonomics.science). He has (co-)authored over 250 publications in the fields of robonomics, robots/artificial intelligence/automation in tourism/hospitality, the economics of technology, tourism economics, etc.

http://www.stanislavivanov.com
https://scholar.google.com/
https://www.researchgate.net/

Dr. Maya Ivanova is the Head of the Projects Department at Zangador Research Institute, Bulgaria. She has 10 years of experience in tour operator and travel agent companies. Dr. Ivanova has published on air transport, tourism intermediaries, hotel chain management, and the platform economy, among other topics.

https://www.researchgate.net/
https://scholar.google.com/

Critical tourism researcher and lecturer Fiona Eva Bakas, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Geography and Territorial Planning, University of Lisbon. Fiona is a Visiting Research Fellow at the Center of Excellence in Food, Tourism & Leisure, The American College of Greece, a collaborating researcher in the CREATOUR Creative Tourism Observatory, member of TERRITUR Research group, and associate member of NGO Equality in Tourism.

https://orcid.org/
https://ceg.igot.ulisboa.pt/
https://coeftl.acg.edu/

Vasileios graduated from Athens University with a Ptychion in Mathematics, an MSc in Applied Mathematics and an MPhil in Economics. His main research interests lie within the fields of Game Theory, Experimental Economics, Intelligent Systems, Fintech & Payments Systems.

Elin Storman is a Lecturer in Working Life Science at Dalarna University, Sweden. Her research focuses on organisational restructuring, job transitions and changing employment relations. Using qualitative approaches, she examines how workers experience and respond to organisational and labour market change. She is currently involved in research on the future of work, labour market transitions and sustainable working lives in changing organisational contexts.

Felicia Roșioru is Associate Professor of Labour Law and EU Employment Law at the Faculty of Law, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Her research focuses on the collective rights of workers in non-standard forms of employment and on the status of intermediate categories, such as economically dependent workers and platform workers.

https://law.ubbcluj.ro/index.php

Monica Maria Coroş is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Business, Babeș-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania, teaching and researching management, entrepreneurship, tourism, and hospitality topics. Her research addresses sustainable tourism and SDGs, smart tourism, digitization in hospitality and tourism, hospitality employment perspectives, rural tourism, destination management organizations, entrepreneurship, and SMEs and adds up to over 100 articles, books, and book chapters.

https://scholar.google.com
https://www.researchgate.net
https://orcid.org/
https://tbs.ubbcluj.ro/

Toader Valentin holds a PhD in International Economic Relations and a habilitation in Business Administration. He teaches economics at the Faculty of Business, Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, where he has served as dean since 2020. His research interests include price evolution, the sharing economy, the economic impact of festivals, and innovation and sustainability in tourism.

Tânia Gaspar holds a Degree and PhD in Psychology, a PhD in Management, a Master’s in Public Health and a degree in Clinical Psychology. She is Associate Professor with Aggregation, member of Hei-lab Research Center, and Director of the Servive for Psychology, Innovation and Knowledge (SPIC). She is also Lusófona University Coordinator of the Portuguese Laboratory for Healthy Workplaces.

Mafalda Patuleia holds a PhD in Tourism from the Faculty of Economics at the University of the Algarve and is currently the Director of the Tourism Department at Lusófona University. She has over 25 years of teaching experience and a robust academic portfolio, with her research focusing on creative tourism, sustainability, lifestyle entrepreneurship, second homes, and the competitiveness of tourist destinations.

Joana Ferreira holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Clinical and Health Psychology. She is currently involved in several research projects at the HEI-Lab Research Center and the Service for Psychology, Innovation and Knowledge (SPIC) at Universidade Lusófona – University Centre of Lisbon, focusing on well-being and the promotion of mental health.

Dora Fonseca has a PhD in Sociology from the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra. She is a researcher at CoLABOR. Her research focuses on industrial relations, particularly on collective labor relations, collective bargaining and trade unionism, and, more recently, the impacts of digitalization and platform work on labor relations.

https://www.cienciavitae.pt/
https://www.colabor.pt

Franco Tomassoni holds a PhD in Global Studies from the New University of Lisbon – Faculty of Human and Social Sciences. He has worked and published on a variety of topics, including European energy security and policy, platform labor and digitalization, logistics and global supply chains, economic and global history, and industrial relations. At CoLABOR, he contributes to research lines on labour and industrial relations as well as employment dynamics.

https://www.colabor.pt/

Filipe Lamelas holds a master’s degree in labor law and is a PhD Student in Public Policy. He is a member of the Arbitration Court of the Economic and Social Council, took part in the drafting of the Green Book of Work Relations (2016), and was a consultant in the Ministry of Labor, Solidarity and Social Security. Filipe also integrates the Global Policy Network (GPN) ExpRes Roster of the UN Development Program.

https://www.cienciavitae.pt/
https://www.colabor.pt/