Michaela Pelikan is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne.She is the spokesperson of the International Research Unit 'The Production and Reproduction of Social Inequalities: Global Contexts and Concepts of Labour Exploitation'. Director of the International Research Cluster 'Conflict-Induced Displacement and Socio-Economic Resilience: Learning from Neglected Conflicts in Cameroon and Myanmar'.
Principal Investigator of the DFG Research Unit 5183 'Transborder Mobility and Institutional Dynamics, Principal Investigator and Board Member of the Global South Studies Center Cologne (GSSC). 
Prof. Pelican's main areas of research and teaching are ethnicity, indigeneity, conflict, migration within the Global South, social inequality, research methodology and audio-visual anthropology. Her regional specialisation is sub-Saharan Africa.