Maria Ullrich conducts research from the perspective of political sociology at the intersection of (forced) migration and democracy studies, focusing in particular on the following topics:

European border and migration policy
SAR NGOs and social movements
Democracy and citizenship
Socio-material conditions of mobility
Reflexive (forced) migration research

As a researcher at the University of Bonn’s IMPULSE – House for Intellectual Innovation and Creativity, she also works across disciplines on developing and experimenting with formats of co-creative and transdisciplinary knowledge production, including a particular focus on the role of imagination and embodiment.

Maria Ullrich studied European Studies and Political Science at the Universities of Passau, Bonn, and Naples. After graduating in 2016, she first worked as a research assistant at the Center for Development Research in Bonn and from 2017 to 2020 as a research fellow at the University of Siegen in teaching and research. She wrote her doctoral thesis (in German) at the University of Siegen on civic practices of refugees in the German reception context. At FIW, she worked, among other roles, as a postdoctoral researcher in the project ZivDem – Navigating the Mediterranean. Search and Rescue and the Dissensus on Democracy, as well as co-leading the project Reflexivity in Forced Migration Studies. As a co-founder of the Bonn Platform for Forced Migration Studies, she has also been committed since 2022 to fostering collaborative knowledge production among political, civil society, and academic actors in Bonn.