Home page: http://cs.uef.fi/pages/franti/
Pasi Fränti received his MSc and PhD degrees from the University of Turku, 1991 and 1994 in Science. Since 2000, he has been a professor of Computer Science at the University of Eastern Finland (UEF). He has published 79 journals and 167 peer review conference papers, including 14 IEEE transaction papers. His main research interests are in machine learning, data mining, and pattern recognition including clustering algorithms and intelligent location-aware systems. Significant contributions have also been made in image compression, image analysis, vector quantization and speech technology.
Pasi Fränti is the head of the Machine Learning group at the school of computing at UEF. He has supervised 25 PhD students on the following topics: Clustering (9), Image and audio compression (5), Speech technology (4), Image processing, de-noising and HDR (3), Location-aware systems (3), and web mining (1). Six of the students originate from Russian including St. Petersburg (3), Uljanovsk (2) and Novosibirsk (1). All graduates work in research, teaching (postdoc, lecturer, associate professor), or in research & development in academia or in IT companies located in Finland, Shanghai, Singapore, Germany, Romania and Iran.
I teach and do research in the social psychology team at the Department of Social Sciences. I am also part of the UEF neuroscience research community, Professor Päivi Eriksson’s Neuroimpact and Innovation (NOVA) research group. I have a PhD in Social Sciences (Social Psychology).
My special expertise is in qualitative research methods, in particular discursive, dialogical and narrative methods. My research focuses on organisational and leadership studies, microcultures at work, interaction and team dynamics.
I work as a doctoral researcher in the field of Biblical studies. My research interests include cultural astronomy, text mining, cognitive metaphor theory and argumentation analysis. I am currently studying the ways in which the Biblical authors utilized ancient celestial cartography and star lore in their writings.
I work as a postdoctoral researcher on a research project examining disengagement or disaffiliation from long-term religious communities, close relationships between those who have left and those who remain in the community, and experiences of place. I also teach social psychology part-time.
My previous research has focused on everyday intergroup contact. I have worked on the FriendMUM project, which examines intercultural friendships between mothers with immigrant and Finnish backgrounds in a friendship program. My doctoral research was conducted as part of the Mamanet project and focused on encounters between mothers of young children and everyday segregation in multi-ethnic neighbourhoods. More broadly, I am interested in how everyday interactions in different contexts shape people’s experiences and intergroup relations in increasingly diverse communities. I have also contributed to research projects examining national symbols and local environmental threats. In my research, I use a range of qualitative approaches.
Alongside my research, I have taught social psychology courses on topics including intergroup relations, mental health and wellbeing, and environmental social psychology. I am also interested in teaching practices that support inquiry-based learning and curiosity.
I study grammatical variation in world Englishes – English is spoken all over the world as a native language, second language or foreign language, but is English the same everywhere? I’m particularly interested in the progressive construction (I‘m reading an interesting book.), but also in modal auxiliaries and forms of the verb BE. I study world Englishes, but also recent change in British English. In my research, I use corpus linguistic tools and advanced statistical methods.
Recently, I’ve grown an interest in the status of English in Finland.
I coordinate the Research infrastructure for datasets and humanities at the Philosophical Faculty.
My research covers data science from method development to applications. The most important fields I have developed methods for are matrix and tensor decompositions over non-standard algebras, redescription mining, and analysis of social networks. Their applications range from data mining, ecological niche modelling, the analysis of parliamentary candidates’ opinions, and the analysis of voluntary-based network services to health data analysis.
For more information, please see my home page (link at the end of the page).
I work as a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Humanities, University of Eastern Finland. In my postdoctoral project, funded by the Kone Foundation (2023–2026), I study the everyday practices, networks, and expressions of transnational solidarity among Russian-speaking LGBTIQ+ activists in the Baltic states and online, particularly following Russia’s full-scale war of aggression in Ukraine in 2022.
My ethnographic PhD research (2022) examined the development and forms of LGBTIQ+ activism in St. Petersburg during the late 2010s.
I work part-time on a project funded by the Research Council of Finland, titled Menopausing: Diversity, Awareness, and Activism (2024–2028). Drawing on queer and cultural studies, I investigate menopause activist communities and influencers in Finland who seek to advance gender and age equity. More in detail, I focus on communities and influencers engaged with menopause-related themes and promoting gender and age equality, with particular emphasis on the intersectons of activism and care.
I am the principal instructor for the course Gender Studies Perspectives at the University of Eastern Finland.
I supervise doctoral candidates in gender and cultural studies and serve on doctoral follow-up committees.
I am a board member of the Association for Gender Studies in Finland and a vice member at the executive team of the national HILMA Network for Gender Studies.
Academic Degrees
- MD, Kuopio University, 1994
- PhD, Kuopio University, 1995
- Qualified Lecturer, Docent of Experimental Neurology, Kuopio University, 1997
- Specialist in Neurology, Kuopio University, 2003
- Adjunct Professor (Docent), Neurology, Kuopio University, 2006
- Professor, Kuopio University, 2009 –
Major Positions and Appointments
- Researcher, Department of Neurology, Kuopio University, 1989 – 1994
- Junior Researcher, Academy of Finland, 1995 – 1998
- Visiting Scientist, Center for Molecular Biology (ZMBH), University of Heidelberg, 1997 – 1999
- Resident Physician, Department of Neurology, Kuopio University Hospital, 1995 2002
- Chief Physician of Inpatient Clinic, Department of Neurology, Kuopio University Hospital, 2003 – 2006
- Chief Physician of Outpatient Clinic, Department of Neurology, Kuopio University Hospital, 2007 – 2009
- Chief of Neurological Care Unit (Stroke Unit), Kuopio University Hospital, 2004 – 2009
- Director, The Finnish Brain Research and Rehabilitation Center Neuron, 2009 – 2012
- Professor of Neurodegenerative Diseases and Rehabilitation, UEF, 2009 – 2012
- Director and Chief Physician, NeuroCenter, Kuopio University Hospital, 2012 – present
- Professor of Neurology, UEF, 2012 – present
The political and social meanings of literature are at the very center of my research. I’m particularly interested in identities and the related intersectional phenomena, problems, and categories, such as those of race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender. My research is, to an extent, based on Fredric Jameson’s views on the political significance of literature and culture. I have constructed my own version of the dialectic of ideology and utopia, which Jameson introduced, but left somewhat vague. The main idea is that utopia is much more than an idealistic vision of a perfect society of happiness. In my view, it is more rewarding to think of utopia as an impulse or desire, constructed in our efforts to solve problems. In literary texts, this happens both on the level of form and content. Related to these issues are also the concepts of space, mobility, and borders. My field is the literature of African Americans and the black diaspora, but these theoretical premises provide possibilities to probe into a large variety of other texts and phenomena. My current research project focuses on the representations and imaginary resolutions of the cultural trauma of the memory of slavery in contemporary African American literature.
