Simone Aumaj

Simone Zalla Aumaj holds a BA in cultural anthropology and a MA in Gender Studies with a minor in international human rights law. Simone currently works for the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment in The Netherlands where she has worked as a policy officer within the department of Society and Integration and as a board adviser to the Director-General of Social Security and Integration. Currently, she works as policy advisor in the Unit Social Support on St. Eustatius.

In her previous work experiences, the topics of diversity, inclusion, equity, higher education and migration in relation to policy have been recurring themes. As a research assistant at the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam she contributed to a research project that focused on how the perspectives of refugees can be structurally included in policy-making processes. At the Utrecht University she was founder of Work in Progress, a student-led project that was funded by the Ministry of Education which aimed to increase the belonging of students of colour within the university. In 2019 she won the ECHO awards – an award for excellent students with a migration background who have outstanding academic records and are socially engaged. After winning the ECHO-award she started working at ECHO: expertise center for diversity policy as a project officer. In her ambition to contribute to a more equitable world, Simone aims to centralize the lived experience within policies pertaining to migration, diversity and inclusion.

Updated September 2021