Betty will conduct legal, historical and empirical research in the national, European and international rules that transnational families encounter, the views behind these rules as well as the impact in the everyday lives of transnational families. Such research will provide new insights into the meanings of nationality, citizenship and belonging.

Betty de Hart is a legal scholar and sociologist of law. In 2016, she was granted an ERC Consolidator Grant for a research project that addressed the question if, how and why ‘interracial’ relationships and families were regulated in Europe, how they responded, and the role of law and lawyers in the development of racial thinking in Europe.

In 2007, Betty received a Vidi research grant from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) for the project ‘Transnational Families between Dutch and Islamic Family Law’. She defended her PhD on mixed relationships in nationality law and migration law’ in 2003.

Currently, she is Professor of Migration Law at University of Amsterdam and Associate Professor at Radboud University Nijmegen.