Doctoral Researcher Marie Hemmen is a doctoral researcher at IRI THESys and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), funded by the Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt (DBU). Her research focuses on the impacts of high temperatures on global agricultural production. During her PhD, she develops a method for enhanced heat stress representation in process-based crop…

Graduate Program Board

Doctoral Researcher Laura Betancur Alarcón joined IRI THESys in August 2021 as a PhD Researcher in the ‘Water for Whom’ project. She is researching everyday water use practices and adaptation strategies in communities affected by hydro dams through a multi-sited ethnographic study in Colombia. Laura holds a master’s degree in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science…

Doctoral Researcher Liliana Mosquera is a doctoral researcher in the Hydrology and Society research group of the Department of Geography and IRI THESys. She is an Ecologist and holds an MSc from the Erasmus Mundus program of the European Union in International Rural Development. Her research at IRI THESys aims to understand the process of…

Doctoral Researcher David Meng-Chuen Chen is a doctoral researcher at IRI THESys and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). He completed his BSc. in International Agriculture and Food Systems at McGill University (2015) and MSc. at the Humboldt Universität zu Berlin in Integrated Natural Resource Management (2020). His master’s thesis produced projections of…

Diego DePanis

Alumnus (Research Assistant) Diego De Panis studied Biology at the University of Buenos Aires, defending a Licentiate thesis about coagulation physiology in pathological situations associated with particular mutations; and a PhD thesis in evolution about environmental adaptation in a model of speciation by ecological specialization. After a postdoc in conservation genomics of Andean Condors, he…

Karla Pintado

Alumna (Research Assistant) Karla Pintado is a research assistant for the Multifunctional Landscapes Research Group within the RuralFutures project at IRI THESys. She holds a Bachelor degree in Biology with a major in Ecology (Ecuador) and Master’s degree in Sustainable Resource Management (Germany). Her research focuses on the restoration of structural and functional components of…

Project Staff RuralFutures

Alumna (Project Manager) Anastasiia Polianskaia joined IRI THESys in 2021 to support the coordination of the RuralFutures project. Anastasiia holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Master’s degree in Global Change Management. Her master’s thesis focussed on studying climate change adaptation policy landscape of Peru. In the past, Anastasiia worked as a marketing manager…

Alumnus (Doctoral Researcher) Prior to his PhD at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Humboldt-University Berlin, Fabian Stenzel got a Masters degree in Geophysics from LMU Munich. During his PhD, Fabian was an active member of the IRI THESys and served as PhD representative. Currently Fabian works as a PostDoc at the Potsdam…

Alumnus (Student Assistant) Paul Schulze is currently supporting the interdisciplinary research group of students holding the Humboldt-Scholarship ‚Sustainability and Global Justice‘. He is enrolled in the bachelor program Geography with focus on human geography since 2018. Paul is a future fellow of the NEURUS program, planning a research stay next year in Phoenix, AZ, for…

Coordination Graduate Program

Coordinator THESys Graduate Program and Climate Protection Manager Wiebke Hampel has been the coordinator of the THESys Graduate Program since August 2023. Previously, she coordinated the Postdoc Academy for Transformational Leadership for 4 years. Since May 2021 she also works in climate protection management at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin where she and colleagues created a…