Yann Clough is Professor in Environmental Sciences and Assistant Director for Research at the Centre for Environmental and Climate science (CEC), Lund university, Sweden. He studied agriculture in France and the Netherlands, and did his PhD in Agroecology in Göttingen, comparing biodiversity in organic and conventional agriculture. His work focusses on the links between land-use, biodiversity, ecosystem services and resilience to climate change in farm and farm-forest landscapes in temperate and tropical agricultural systems. Much of his research is interdisciplinary, and international collaboration currently includes participation in H2020 Safeguard (European Pollinators) and UPSCALE (Upscaling push-pull technology in East Africa). He currently leads the ERC Project DrivenByPollinators aimed at assessing the role of pollinators in mediating effects of landscape-scale land-use effects on plant communities.
Costanza Geppert is a researcher at the University of Padova, in Italy. After a MSc thesis on the effectiveness of flower strips and organic farming to support pollinators at Goettingen University (DE), she was awarded her PhD for studies on climate change effects on plants and herbivore insects at the University of Padova. Currently, she works on social-ecological systems, ecosystem services and human-nature connections, with a focus on insects. She teaches a course on insects under global change.
Deepa Senapathi trained as an ecologist and conservation biologist. After completing her undergraduate studies in Zoology at the University of Madras, India, she briefly explored aspects of Molecular Ecology as a visiting researcher at the University of Cambridge. She then moved away from the lab to the field and completed a MSc in Applied Ecology and Conservation at the University of East Anglia before completing her PhD at the University of Reading, UK. She has worked on critically endangered bird species including the Jerdon’s Courser and the Mauritius Kestrel but has focussed more on insect pollinator conservation over the last decade. Her research focusses on the impacts of environmental change on biodiversity and ecosystem services. More recently she had focussed on knowledge exchange and working with policymakers and land managers to enhance land management for biodiversity and improve livelihoods.
Tamara Mitrofanenko is working as an expert in the field of regional sustainable development as part of the team of the United Nations Environment Programme, Office in Vienna, Secretariat of the Carpathian Convention and at the University of Natural Resources and life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU), Institute of Landscape Development, Recreation and Conservation Planning (ILEN). Her work has been largely focused on Central and Eastern Europe, and the Caucasus countries. Her PhD Thesis was focused on “Integrating approaches from the Intergenerational field into protected area management and regional development governance”. Since learning about the importance of transdisciplinary approaches for sustainable regional development, she has devoted her efforts to integration of transdisciplinary approaches into academic systems and policy processes as well as science-policy-practice interface in the context of sustainable regional development, as well as Education for Sustainable Development.
Agnieszka Wypych is an associate professor in climatology at Jagiellonian University in Krakow and works also in the Institute of Meteorology and Water Management - National Research Institute which serves as National Weather Service in Poland. Her main research fields cover climatology, hydroclimatology and GIS in environmental sciences while the current research interests are mostly weather extremes as well as climate change and variability and its impact on the environment and the society. She is currently a head of Human-Environmental Systems Research Centre at Jagiellonian University and also a chair of the Commission on Climatology International Geographical Union.
Magdalena Kubal-Czerwińska, is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Tourism and Health Resort Management, Institute of Geography and Spatial Management, Faculty of Geography and Geology at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. Her background is solid in socio-economic geography and tourism, she holds both: MSc and PhD in Tourism Geography. She is an active and involved researcher with research interests revolving around such topics as entrepreneurial behaviour in hospitality on rural areas, gender in tourism, cultural tourism, sustainable development in tourism and hospitality, attitudes and behaviours towards the problem of reducing food waste. She was involved as a researcher in national and international projects, e.g., the Visegrad funds, Twinning (H2020), National Science Centre (Poland). She is an active member of the Human-Environmental Systems Research Centre (HES Research Centre) at the Faculty of Geography and Geology of the Jagiellonian University, a center of excellence in the field of research on human-environmental system.
Daniel Fischer is professor of Sustainability Education and Communication at Leuphana University Lüneburg, where he also holds the UNESCO Chair in Higher Education for Sustainable Development. His research explores how more sustainable ways of living can be facilitated in education, with a special emphasis on Teacher Education. He uses inter- and transdisciplinary approaches to understand how sustainable practices of meeting needs evolve and change over time and in different cultural settings, and what role communication and learning processes play in this. Daniel led several grant-funded projects nationally and internationally to study how innovative practices like mindfulness, storytelling, or citizen science can raise reflexivity, build competencies, and empower learners to take action. As part of the Sustainability Education and Transdisciplinary Research Institute (SETRI) at Leuphana University, Daniel’s work contributes to bridging boundaries between research and practice for transformative change.
Péter Batáry is a scientific advisor and research group leader at the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research, in Hungary. He studied biology and ecology in Budapest, and performed his PhD in behaviour ecology in Debrecen, Hungary. He then moved for eleven years to the University of Göttingen, Germany, and focused on agroecology. Major fields of his interest are case studies and meta-analyses about grassland fragmentation, biological effectiveness of agri-environment schemes, pest control and pollination. He is interested in agroecology, urban ecology, and how environmental interventions can be aligned with production or development.