Innovative Energy & Research
Open Access

Biography

Dr. phil., science journalist, Dipl. biochemistry, born 1976, has been habilitating at the Free University Berlin since 2009 on the issue of „Design potentials and limits for a sustainable biofuel policy on the example of the regulation paths of Brazil and Germany”. In 2008 she has been appointed head of a team of 11 researchers who constitute the interdisciplinary research group “Biofuel as Social Fuel” at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). It is funded by the German Ministry of Education and Research with a budget of €1.9 million as part of the research programme Socio‐ecological Research. Cooperation partner is the Humboldt University of Berlin. The research project assesses to what extent the production of biofuels takes the concept of sustainability in all its dimensions – ecological, economic and social – into account or whether it produces new problems. Towards this end regions in Brazil and Germany have been chosen as case studies. Between 2004 and 2008 she worked as a research fellow at the PIK and from 2001 to 2004 as a freelance journalist.

Research Interest

Her research interest especially lies in the intersection of social and natural science as a perspective to assess the ecological and economic implications of new (risk) technologies. In addition she is interested in the emergence, continuity and change of policy paths in the area of climate, energy, biosafety, and biodiversity with a special focus on Latin America and other developing as well as emerging economies.Governance, comparative policy‐, sustainability‐, risk‐, and discourse research in the fields of energy, technology, environment, climate, agriculture and conflict (main focus: mobility, city regions, municipalities, demographic and rural development, participation, justice, consumption, biodiversity, biosecurity (green genetic engineering)), historic and discursive neo‐institutionalism, science and technology studies, knowledge and knowledge‐based society, urban sociology and environmental sociology

Publications

Explanation of Genesis, Continuity and Change of Policy: Analytical Framework