People

Mgr. Veronika Hásová, Ph.D.

Veronika Hásová began her sociology studies at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of West Bohemia, and earned her doctorate at Charles University in 2024. Her research focuses on topics in the sociology of sport, communities, and the environment. During her studies, she gained experience from various projects on diverse topics such as religion, the environment, and homelessness. She also worked at the department as a secretary and financial project manager. These experiences culminated in her becoming the head of the department.

Mgr. Alena Pařízková, Ph.D.

Alena Pařízková is interested in the issues of international migration, life course, health, inequality and gender. In the past, she has participated in the project analysing changes intimate and family relations in the Czech society. She conducted qualitative research of Czech economic migrants in the UK and examined their family relations, working trajectories and gender aspects of their experiences. She also led a small research project on football fans analysing processes of identity and neo-tribes processes. Currently, she is focusing on health and migration or travel. First she focuses on migrant women and their maternal health. Phenomenon of women who travel for preferred services for long distance or abroad is another research focus. In the area of social work and inequality, she is focusing on intersection of violence, marginalisation and sex-work.

Mgr. Tereza Mazanová

Tereza Mazanová works as a secretary at the Department of Sociology and Social Work. She takes care of personnel, economic, and student affairs. She is responsible for the operation of the secretariat and is the right hand of the department’s management.

prof. PhDr. Dana Hamplová, Ph.D.

Dana Hamplová completed her doctoral studies at the Department of Sociology at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. From 2002 to 2004, she worked on the Globalife project at the Otto-Friedrich University in Bamberg, focused on multidisciplinary comparative research on life courses. Between 2006 and 2010, she was at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. From 2014 to 2017, she served on the Board of Directors of the pan-European research infrastructure CESSDA, and since 2018, she has been a member of the Board of ECSR – European Consortium for Sociological Research. Her research focuses on quantitative sociology, specifically on topics such as family, quality of life, health, social inequalities, and religion. She has led numerous grants awarded by the Czech Science Foundation or the Technology Agency.

prof. PhDr. Hynek Jeřábek, CSc.

Prof. Hynek Jeřábek pursues his research career in the field of empirical social research history and methodology, emphasizing the fact that classical research represents a great source of inspiration for scientists today. He specializes in the study of election and media communication methods and the methodology of social research. He has been working, on a long-term basis, on inter-generational solidarity and elderly care research – see for example his Family Cohesion in Elderly Care project.

prof. PhDr. dušan lužný, dr.

Dušan Lužný has long been studying various forms of modernity, especially in a cross-cultural and global context. His research has been conducted in European and North American environments (e.g. Czech Republic, Ireland, USA) as well as in Asia (e.g. India, Papua New Guinea, Vietnam). His research focuses on the transformation of local religious traditions and the maintenance of cultural memory.

Prof. PhDr. Jan Váně, Ph.D.

Jan Váně (Associate Professor), is a Chairman of the Department of Sociology, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen. He concentrates on comparative research in the field of sociology of religion (individualization, intergenerational transmission of religiosity, religious cultural memory, transformation of religious communities); sociology of education (creation and choice of educational strategies on the part of the actor and the system) and problems of homelessness and social services provided to socially disadvantaged groups. He also focuses on social theories emphasizing the issue of justice and methodological innovation in research.

Mgr. Lukáš Dirga, Ph.D.

Lukáš Dirga graduated with a degree (MA) in Sociology at the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts of the University of West Bohemia, Pilsen, Czech Republic. His main research interests lie in penitentiary sociology (sociology of prison life), criminology, criminal justice, penal policy and sociology of deviance. Lukáš Dirga has conducted qualitative empirical research projects focused on different topics related to prison environment. He is particularly interested in the process of humanization of Czech prison system and the role of religion in prison environment. In his last ethnographic research project, Lukáš Dirga analyzed the relationship inmates have to their bodies during imprisonment.

Mgr. Alena Glajchová, Ph.D.

Alena Glajchová completed a master’s degree in Sociology at the Faculty of Philosophy and Arts, University of West Bohemia in Pilsen in 2014. In her master’s thesis, called A point of view of doctors on patients and perception of their position in the current health care system, she have focused on how do doctors perceive their role and relationship with patients in the context of public health. Based on findings from in-depth interviews, she have delineated changes in medical profession and in doctor-patient relationship in current Czech society. She have pointed also how do doctors consider the functioning of the Czech health care system with regard to ongoing transformation of society since 1989.

PhDr. František Kalvas, Ph.D.

František Kalvas works as assistant professor at Department of Socialogy at University of West Bohemia. He studies the public opinion formation processes (mainly spiral of silence, agenda-setting, and framing), religious collective memory, and cooperative behaviour. He is methodologically focused on agent-based modelling, survey data analysis (including panel data), and Q-methodology. In the field of applied reserch, he is specialised on quality assurance of university education, and social services evaluation.

Mgr. Bc. jan kaňák, Ph.D.

Jan Kaňák focuses on spirituality within the helping professions, especially in social work, and also on the area of mourning. In his exploration of spirituality, he focuses on the diversity of individual constructions of spirituality, their form in specific life stories, and the intersection of spiritual and professional discourse in the approaches and interventions of helping professionals. In the area of grief / bereavement / mourning, he focuses primarily on rethinking the concept of a comprehensive network of grief and possible support for the bereaved.

PhDr. Eva Krulichová, Ph.D.

Eva Krulichová completed her doctoral studies at the Department of Sociology at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague. She focuses on quantitative research in connection with criminological topics. Her attention is primarily directed towards the fear of crime, trust in criminal justice, public attitudes towards punishment, desistance, and juvenile delinquency. She works at the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences and has long-term collaborations on projects with Charles University and the Institute for Criminology and Social Prevention.

Mgr. Karel Řezáč, PH.D.

Karel Řezáč completed a PhD in Social Policy and Social Work at the Faculty of Social Studies of the Masaryk University. He is a lecturer in social work at the Department of Sociology of the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen. Since his undergraduate studies, his research interests have included boundaries of professional performance of social work, deinstitutionalization, foster care, human development, and well-being. He defended his Ph.D. thesis on The Potentiality of Children in Foster Care. He worked as a social worker in an NGO responsible for children’s social and legal protection.

PhDr. Tomáš Kobes, Ph.D.

Tomáš Kobes is social anthropologist. His main field research is in Slovakia, where he focuses on regional development and social exclusion, kinship, gender and building of identity in its broad term. Having completed in 2004 his doctoral research on the role of regional development project in the integration of local Roma people, his research since has focused on such topics as kinship, homosexuality and transsexuality, the infrastructural implementation in Eastern Slovakian Roma settlements, or building the social memory in relation to materiality and infrastructure. These ethnographic interests formed his theoretical concerns with such areas as new kinship studies, critical discourse analysis, actor-network theory and more generally the ontological turn in social sciences.

Mgr. Martin Švantner, Ph.D.

Martin Švantner, PhD is an assistant professor at the Charles University in Prague (Department of Electronic Culture and Semiotics) and is a lecturer at the West Bohemian University in Pilsen (Department of Sociology). He is also a researcher at the Faculty of Social Sciences (Charles University; HYDRA project, focused on interrogation of “hybrid revolutionary actors” in global politics). His general interest is focused on semiotics, cognitive semiotics, social semiotics, history of semiotics, history of rhetorics, social philosophy, theory of argumentation and critical theory. He is a member of the International Association for Semiotic Studies, Semiotic Society of America, Central European Pragmatist forum. He is also a member of scientific comitte of the The International Association for Cognitive Semiotics and a member of an editorial board of The American Journal of Semiotics. His latest publication is co-edited volume on Peirce´s theory of sign (How to Make our Signs Clear, Leiden: Brill, 2018).

Ing. Mgr. Jiří Remr, Ph.D., MBA

Jiří Remr graduated from the Faculty of Social Sciences at Charles University, where he earned a doctorate in evaluations. He serves as an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University, and is also the Research Director at the Institute for Evaluations and Social Analyses, where he focuses on the development of evaluation methods and meta-evaluations. He is the Editor-in-Chief of the professional journal “Evaluation Theory and Practice”. He also works as an external evaluator. He has been a member of the Czech Evaluation Society since 2010 and served as its President (or Chairman of the Board of Directors) from 2012 to 2016.

Mgr. Patrik Galeta, Ph.D.