Having graduated in Sociology at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Eötvös Loránd University, I defended my doctoral (Ph.D.) thesis at Corvinus University of Budapest with summa cum laude honors.
I began my career at the Information Society and Trend Research Institute at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics as a researcher. I worked together with several major market research institutes, non-governmental research centers and ad hoc research groups. During the past decade, I was Director of Research at Kutatópont, where I was responsible for managing around 50 projects annually, largely in the field of market research.
In 2012, I became professional leader of the large-sample youth survey. Polls in 2012, 2016 and 2020 were conducted under my supervision. The most recent surveys, carried out on a 12,000-item sample representative of young Hungarians aged 15-29, attracted significant media attention.
I am the author or co-author of over a hundred scholarly publications, including journal articles, book chapters and reports, and have spoken at a number of conferences, primarily in the fields of youth affairs and information society. My latest book is entitled Grey Swans. [Székely, L. (2020): Szürke hattyúk. Enigma2001, 200p. ISBN 978-615-81136-1-8]
In addition to youth, my chief research interests are connected to new media. However, I am also interested in a wide range of other topics, including cultural consumption, financial culture, formulation of and practical responses to questions of social theory, and research planning and conduction.