[1] Lubbers studied sociology at the University of Groningen, completing her Ph.D. in Behavioral and Social Sciences there in 2004.
Her research concerns how personal networks reproduce, exacerbate, or mitigate social exclusion, inequality, and segregation.
Since 2021, she conducts the research project "A network science approach to social cohesion in European societies" (PATCHWORK), for which she received the ERC Advanced Grant of the European Research Council.
Lubbers is the coauthor of the book Conducting Personal Network Research: A Practical Guide (Guilford Press, 2019, with Christopher McCarty, Raffaele Vacca, and José Luis Molina).
[6] In 2020, Lubbers was elected as ICREA Acadèmia fellow of the Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies.