November 18, 2022 | News | Welcome to the MPIDR
Egor Kotov is a new PhD Student at the Laboratory of Digital and Computational Demography
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Egor Kotov comes from the Higher School of Economics in Moscow, where he analyzed intra-urban commuting and its connections with urban spatial development and land use. While staying with us for the next three years, he will focus on studying the implications of human mobility for disease dynamics and inequality.
What question drives you most in your research?
I am interested in the reasons why people move. That includes day-to-day commuting, seasonal and permanent migration, and migration between and within regions. Individual circumstances and life choices, as well as local and regional economic contexts, lead to fascinating interactions of labor and housing markets that generate migratory and commuting flows. These movements are likely to have implications for disease dynamics. Specifically, I will focus on the connections between human mobility and mosquito-borne diseases. Hypothetically, we can predict how the spread of mosquito-borne diseases may change following the changes in the European economy and the associated changes in human migration and commuting patterns.
What are you looking forward to as you start working at the MPIDR?
I am looking forward to find common ground in research and in my personal interests with my new colleagues at the MPIDR and to collaborate on my PhD project with teams outside the MPIDR. I also cannot wait to participate in many activities at the MPIDR, such as the reading club, PhD classes, internal seminars, and lectures.
What do you like most about Rostock?
I like walking, and most places in the city are within walking distance. It’s a significant change after having lived in a mega-city for most of my life. Yet big cities are just 2 hours away by train. Some cities I have never visited can be conveniently reached by ferry from Rostock. I definitely want to visit those, too.
What are you obsessed with at the moment besides demography?
I am currently obsessed with organizing my time and adapting my daily routines, finding an apartment to rent, and finding a great local coffee roaster. In the longer run, I would like to learn German.