Mika Helander
Senior Lecturer, Docent at Åbo Akademi University
Oulu, Mainland Finland
Summary
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Rockstar🎓
Top SchoolMika Helander is a senior lecturer and docent at Åbo Akademi University with nearly three decades of academic experience in sociology, migration, labour markets and social security policy. He combines rigorous research—recently on temporary migrant workers in Finland and a peer-reviewed international article—with extensive teaching, administration and public engagement across institutions from LSE to Tallinn University. Mika has authored books and reports in Swedish and Finnish on ethnic diversity, integration and temporal work arrangements, and has chaired academic and trade-union bodies, bringing practical governance experience to his scholarship. Uncommonly for a social scientist, he also contributes to open-source software security work as a full-stack JavaScript developer, having refactored core cryptographic code in a notable decentralised project to modern Node and WebCrypto APIs. Based in Oulu, he blends empirical fieldwork, Bourdieu-inspired theory and policy-oriented dissemination to influence debates on migration, labour and social insurance.
9 years of coding experience
24 years of employment as a software developer
BSc, Offentlig förvaltning, BSc, Offentlig förvaltning at Svenska social- och kommunalhögskolanResearch Fee -student (PhD programme), Sociology, globalisation, nationalism, Research Fee -student (PhD programme), Sociology, globalisation, nationalism at London School of Economics and Political SciencePhD, Sociology, Political Science, PhD, Sociology, Political Science at Helsingin yliopistoHighschool matriculation examination, History, Highschool matriculation examination, History at Karleby svenska gymnasium
swedish, finnish, english, danish, (german), (french),(norwegian)(estonian)
Github Skills (5)
it-security10
javascript10
nodejs10
cryptography10
security10
Programming languages (1)
Github contributions (4)
amark/gun
Aug 2017 - Feb 2018
An open source cybersecurity protocol for syncing decentralized graph data.
Role in this project:
Back-end Developer & Security Engineer
Back-end Developer & Security EngineerContributions:2 reviews, 132 commits, 1 PR in 6 months
Contributions summary:Mika refactored the `sea.js` file, the core cryptographic library of the project, to utilize NodeJS crypto and Web Cryptography APIs, thereby improving performance and security. This involved switching to modern cryptographic primitives, making the library more robust. The changes suggest a strong focus on securing the Gun project's core functionality by utilizing industry best practices.
realtimeprotocolethereumconflict-resolutionindexing
mhelander/gun
Mar 2018 - Apr 2018
Contributions:5 commits, 4 PRs, 97 pushes in 1 month
realtimedatabase-enginedecentralizednodejsdatabase
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