Mark Levels (1977) is a Senior Researcher at the Research Centre for Education and the Labor Market (ROA) of Maastricht University’s School of Business and Economics, and a Fellow of the German College of Interdisciplinary Education Research (CIDER), as well as Associate Member of Nuffield College in Oxford (UK). Dr. Levels studies how laws and institutions affect individuals’ lives. He is currently developing three main research lines. The first line of research explores the relationship between laws and fertility-related decision-making, such as abortion and contraceptive decisions. Secondly, he studies the how countries can best design educational systems to ensure that school-leavers and graduates meet the skills requirements of the labor markets in which they are to participate. Thirdly, he is interested in explaining skills gaps between migrants and natives in Western countries. His scholarly work has appeared in books, and journals such as the American Sociological Review, the European Sociological Review, and Ethnic and Racial Studies.

After voluntary military service, Levels studied sociology at the Radboud University Nijmegen and at the European University Institute in Fiesole, Italy. He graduated with the highest possible honors from Radboud University’s sociology program in 2006 and subsequently conducted research for his Ph.D. in the Social Sciences (2011) at the Nijmegen branch of the Interuniversity Centre for Social Science Theory and Methodology (ICS), and at Nuffield College of the University of Oxford, England. Before starting at Maastricht University, dr. Levels served as assistant professor at the Sociology Department of Radboud University Nijmegen, as a member of the governing board of that department, and as a member of the National Assessment Committee, instigated every five years to assess the quality of Dutch university-level sociology curricula.