Former Visiting Scholars
Prof. Dr. Consuelo Varela Ortega, Department of Agricultural Economics, Statistics and Management Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Spain
October 01, 2015 – October 30, 2016
Prof. Consuelo Varela Ortega is Professor of Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid . She is also member of the recently created Research Centre for the Management of Agricultural and Environmental Risk (CEIGRAM). She has been involved, during the past 25 years in research in Spanish, European Union and International networks in the fields of agricultural policy and the environment, water resources management and institutions. Professor Varela-Ortega is the country representative for Spain in the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE) and has taken part in the scientific committee and advisory panels of several international institutions, such as the Global and National Food and Water System for the CGIAR Challenge Program on Water and Food and the CIRAD (International center for agricultural development research) in France.
Nicolás Acosta García, University of Oulu, Finland
Nicolás Acosta García is a PhD student of Department of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Oulu, Finland under the supervision of Hannu Heikkinen and Katharine Farrell; and currently he is a visiting scholar at WINS. He holds a master’s degree in Environmental Science, Policy and Management from the University of Manchester in the UK, Lund University in Sweden and Central European University in Hungary. He has worked in Colombia in environmental management for the energy sector, which made him question the conditions and outcomes of development, resource extraction and conservation. His current research in political ecology address the larger question of “how can ‘we’ –all the different we’s– speak of conservation” given the specific conditions of Utría National Park in Colombia’s north Pacific Coast. He is interested in creating conditions in which conflict, intercommunity relations, biodiversity conservation, ecotourism, ethnicity and identity can be meaningfully and constructively addressed for and by each of the different stakeholder groups.
Prof. Dr. David Barkin, Economía Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana-Xochimilco
November 23 - December 18, 2015
March 16 - July 29, November 21 - December 20, 2016
April 03 - July 31, 2017
Prof. David Barkin (Ph.D. Yale, 1966) is Distinguished Professor at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico City. He was a founding member of the Ecodevelopment Center in 1974 and was a recipient of the National Prize in Political Economy in 1979. He is a member of the Mexican Academy of Sciences and was appointed as an Emeritus Member of the National Research Council. His numerous books on human-environment related problems focus on Mexican economic development, food systems analysis and sustainable development; they include: Distorted Development: Mexico in the World Economy; Mexican Innovations in Water Management; and Urban Water Management in Mexico. Another of his books, Wealth, Poverty and Sustainable Development, enjoys wide circulation and can be downloaded free. His present research focuses on the construction of post-capitalist societies.
He is the 2015 Winner of the Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation Georg Forster Research Prize for climate relevant Research, and will be with WINS for two years, under the auspices of this award.
The Alexander von Humboldt-Foundation awards the Georg Forster Research Prize on an annual basis to four internationally recognised scientists from developing countries in recognition of their outstanding life’s work as scholars and their personal role as leaders in research. The 2015 Georg Forster Research Prize for climate relevant Research has been awarded to Prof. Barkin for his career long engagement, over 40 year, with the environment related issues in Mexico and internationally. The prize is financed by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Sergio Villamayor-Tomas, ICTA, Autonomous University of Barcelona
Research Interests:
Common Pool resource Theory and extensions (large scale contexts, social movements, socio-ecological systems, motivation)
Case study research, longitudinal models, Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA), Economic experiments
Spain, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador
Liudmila Murtazina, Kazan National Research Technical University - KAI, Russia
Vice-Head of the Department of International Relations
September 01, 2015 –June 30, 2016
Contact: IRI THESys, Friedrichstr. 191, room 4027, Phone: +49 30 2093 66435
Liudmila Murtazina is the Vice Head of the International Department at Kazan National Research Technical University. In her current position Mrs. Murtazina is responsible for developing international relations at the university level, supporting academic mobility of students and academic staff, organizing international events, and coordinating international research and educational projects. Currently, Mrs. Murtazina is involved in a transnational education project to establish international Master’s programs in English as part of the university’s internationalization strategy. Previously, Mrs. Murtazina worked in the International Department of the Tatarstan Ministry of Education and Science where she promoted international relations in education and events for tertiary and secondary schools.
Research topic: Approaches towards Environmental Education under Sustainable Development (comparative analysis of the Transition Process in Russia and Germany).
Main activities planned at HU Berlin (01/09/2015-30/06/2016) are to participate at WINS seminar sessions and take some university courses, which are based on the sustainable development model (modules of Graduate Course on Institutional Analysis of Social-Ecological Systems, M.Sc. Integrated Natural Resource Management, Theory and Empirical Study of Institutions and Organizations, Bologna-Lab Intensive course).
Expectations: to learn about best practices and successful strategies that could be implemented in courses at Russian universities in order to maximize the use of Environmental Education as an instrument of environmental awareness.