Dounia Bourabain is a PhD researcher at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. She graduated as an honorary student with the greatest distinction in the master of sociology at the VUB. She also studied migration studies at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Her recent research was about ethnic and gender discrimination in clothing stores. She used an innovative methodology to detect discrimination. By conducting situation testing, she could describe the hidden but discriminatory treatment of salesclerks towards customers with a migration background. Her research was publicly recognized and she won several prizes, among others, the P.F. Verhulstprijs and the Acco-thesisprijs. She was also in the finale of the Vlaamse Scriptieprijs that has more than 500 submissions each year. Today, her expertise lies in different fields of inequality.

She is also passionate about vulgarizing her research to the wider public. Therefore, she gives guest lectures, presentations on conferences, and takes part in panels discussing topics on race and gender inequality, discrimination, racism, and other related topics.