Karen Phalet is Full Professor of Social Psychology at KU Leuven since 2006. She is also a senior research fellow of the European Research Centre On Migration and Ethnic Relations (Ercomer) at Utrecht University. She studies social behavior – how people think, feel and act in social interactions, relationships and groups – through the lens of cultural diversity and social inequality. Her academic research examines dynamics of group identities/boundaries and cross-group ties/networks in European migration contexts -- with a view to explaining migration-related inequities, exclusions, stigma and promoting minority wellbeing, success and collective action for social change. Related to the pandemic, she is involved in ongoing cross-national research on school closures and educational inequalities, precarity and solidarity in refugee and migrant communities, and prosociality in response to global threat.