Kim Stienstra is a sociologist with a research interest in social stratification and inequality. She wrote her PhD dissertation at the Department of Sociology at Utrecht University, as part of the Interuniversity Center for Social Science Theory and Methodology (ICS) graduate school. In her PhD project, Kim studied the role of the school environment in explaining educational inequality. Using twin methods, she examined whether schools compensate or exacerbate the influences of children's family background, gender, and genes on their educational performance.

At the EUI, Kim will continue her research on the compensatory and cumulative effects in explaining educational inequality. She intends to study why children have different learning trajectories during primary education, and what the consequences are for future educational outcomes.

Kim taught a course on statistics and social stratification for bachelor and pre-master students. Additionally, she supervised students writing their bachelor’s thesis.