I joined the University of Bucharest in December 2022 with a prestigious Marie Skłodowska-Curie project entitled “The affective economies of emerging private renting markets: understanding tenants and landlords in postcommunist Romania” (AFFECTIVE-PRS, grant 10105918. Previously, I worked at the University of Glasgow (UK), Tilburg University (NL) and the University of St Andrews (UK). I am also a chartered architect and urban planner with a prolific portfolio of residential and commercial projects completed until 2006 when I pursued international postgraduate studies (supported by important scholarships, including the World Bank).

• PhD in Housing Studies, King's College London.
• MSc in Urban Housing Management (Distinction), Erasmus University Rotterdam and Lund University.
• PG in Real Estate, Project and Property Management (Distinction), IHS Erasmus University Rotterdam.
• BArch/MArch in Architecture and Planning, Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urbanism, Bucharest.

My research has focused on some of the ways in which housing and home are permeated by, and shape our ideas of, politics and power, trust and governance, space and place, emotions and embodiment. I have also published on urban issues, e.g. social capital and trust in the post-communist space, precarity of place, policy mobility and novel methodologies.

I have been as a PI/CI in:

• PI in "Finding housing, making home: Romanian migrants in post-Brexit/Covid-19 Britain", a qualitative study funded by CaCHE. Project team: Munro M (CI), Gherghina S (CI), James G (KE), https://housingevidence.ac.uk/finding-housing-making-home-romanian-migrants-in-post-brexit-covid-19-britain/
• PI in "Exploring the nexus between trust, corruption and anti-corruption policies in post-communist Romania", a qualitative longitudinal study funded by the Regional Studies Association, https://www.regionalstudies.org/people/adriana-mihaela-soaita/
• PI in "Tenant activism in the private renting sector", supported by the UK Collaborative Centre of Housing Evidence, https://housingevidence.ac.uk/our-work/research-projects/the-rented-sector-evictions-and-activism/
• CI in "Lockdown pains & mass exodus: rental housing in megacities of the Indian subcontinent", funded by the Scottish Founding Council (PI Sohail Ahmad), https://isardorg.in/rental-housing
• CI in “Co-producing solutions with lower-income renters in Scotland: what do lower income tenants in Scotland’s private rented sector want to see from a new Rented Sector Strategy?”, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (PI Simcock Tom)

Teaching – I have contributed to:

• Module "Housing: Policy, Welfare and Markets", BA (Hons) in Social and Public Policy, University of Glasgow (2018-2022)
• Module "Housing, Inequality and Society", MSc/PGD in Housing Studies, University of Glasgow (2018-2022)
• Module "Foundations of Welfare", BA in Social and Public Policy, University of Glasgow (2018-2022)
• Module "International Real Estate Analysis", MA in Real Estate, Planning and Regeneration, University of Glasgow (2018)Module “Social Policy and Social Risks”, BA in Sociology, Tilburg University (2016)
• Module “Urban Practice”, MSc Urban Management, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (2016)
• Module “Housing, Community and Social-Spatial Justice”, BA (Hons) in Geography, University of St Andrews (2015)
• Module “Qualitative Methods for Social Scientists”, BA (Hons) in Geography, University of St Andrews (2015)   

Journal articles (see the CV for more publications)

• Gibbs K, Marsh A& Soaita AM (2022) Rent regulation: unpacking the debates, International Journal of Housing Policy https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/19491247.2022.2089079
• Soaita AM (2022) Everyday activism: private tenants demand Right to Home, Housing studies, https://doi.org/10.1080/02673037.2022.2036329
• Soaita AM, Marsh A & Gibbs K (2021) Policy movement in housing research: a critical interpretative synthesis, Housing Studies, 10.1080/02673037.2021.1879999
• Popescu C, Soaita AM & Persu M (2021) Peripherality^squared: Mapping the fractal spatiality of the peripheralization in the Danube region of Romania, Habitat International, 107, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.habitatint.2020.102306
• Soaita AM and Dewilde C (2021) Socioeconomic and housing stratification in Romania: mapping a decade of change, Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 36(3), p.1055–1076
• Soaita AM and McKee K (2021) Researching home’s tangible and intangible materialities by photo-elicitation, Housing, Theory and Society, 38(3), p. 279-299
• McKee K, Soaita AM and Hoolachan J (2020) ‘Generation Rent’ and the emotions of private renting: self-worth, status and insecurity, Housing Studies, 5(8), p.1468-1487
• Soaita AM and Wind B (2020) Urban narratives on the changing nature of social capital in post-communist Romania, Europe-Asia Studies, 72(4), p. 712-738
• Soaita AM and McKee K (2019) Assembling a ‘kind of’ home in the UK private renting sector, Geoforum, 103(July), 148-157
• Soaita AM, Serin B and Preece J (2019) A methodological quest for systematic literature mapping, International Journal of Housing Policy, 20(3), 320-343
• Soaita AM and Dewilde C (2019) A critical-realist view of housing quality within the post-communist EU states: progressing towards a middle-range explanation, Housing, Theory and Society, 36(1), 44-75
• Soaita AM, Searle BA, McKee K and Moore T (2017) Becoming a landlord: property-based welfare strategies in the private rental market in Great Britain. Housing Studies, 32:5, 613-637.
• McKee K, Moore T, Soaita AM and Crawford J (2017) Generation Rent and the fallacy of choice, International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 41(2), 318-333.
• Hoolachan JE, McKee K, Moore T and Soaita AM (2017) ‘Generation Rent’ and the ability to ‘settle down’: economic and geographical variation in young people’s housing transitions. Journal of Youth Studies, 20:1, 63-78.
• Soaita AM and Searle BA (2016) Debt amnesia: homeowners’ discourses on the financial costs and gains of homebuying. Environment and Planning A, 48(6), 1087-1106.
• Soaita AM (2015) The meaning of home in Romania: views from urban owner-occupiers. Journal of Housing and the Built Environment, 30:1, 69-85.
• Soaita AM (2014) Overcrowding and ‘under-occupancy’ in Romania: a case study of housing inequality. Environment and Planning A, 46:1, 203-221.