Core Members | Research Network Sustainable Future

Core Members of the Sustainable Future Network

Prof. Dr. Christine Alewell

Professor of Environmental Geosciences. Research and teaching in element budgets of ecosystems, sustainable use of soils and soil degradation, isotope geochemistry and biomarkers as indicators of soil stability.

Prof. Dr. Manfred Max Bergman

Prof. Manfred Max Bergman is Chair of Social Research and Methodology at the University of Basel, Research Councilor of the Swiss National Science Foundation, and member of the Uganda National Academy of Sciences and the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), a global initiative for the United Nations. He is President of the Swiss Academic Society for Environmental Research and Ecology, Section Editor in Chief of Sustainability and Editor in Chief of World. Since2014 he is the Chairman of the World Sustainability Forum and the Basel Sustainability Forum. His research deals with sustainability and the correlation between economics and society in India and China.

Prof. Dr. C. Miguel Brendl

Professor of marketing with research in both marketing (consumer behavior) and psychology, mostly experimental. Works on understanding how people evaluate their decision options when making decisions, what motivational incentives are, and how to influence decisions and motivation.

Prof. Dr. Ruth Delzeit

Professor of Global and Regional Land Use Change. Her research focuses on the economic analysis of land use change, bioenergy and water use. The aim of her research is to understand interrelated processes of global change and their impact on the scarce resource land as well as possible trade-offs in the use of biomass. In doing so, she works in a transdisciplinary manner with partners from science, policy and practice.

Prof. Dr. Benjamin Engel

Benjamin Engel is Assistant Professor of Structural Biology and Biophysics at the Biozentrum. The Engel group investigates the molecular architecture of cells, addressing in particular how macromolecules sculpt cellular organelles, and reciprocally, how the shape of each organelle directs the function of its resident macromolecules. A major focus of Engel’s research is the chloroplast, a particularly complex organelle found in plants and algae. Chloroplasts are the site of photosynthesis, a process by which sunlight energy is used to produce oxygen and fix carbon dioxide into sugars. Engel and his team seek to better understand how the molecular architecture of the chloroplast regulates photosynthesis and carbon fixation, as well as how these processes are affected by environmental stress and climate change.

Prof. Dr. Jens Gaab

Professor of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy. The team of Jens Gaab investigates the psychological conditions for changes in behavior and experience. Previous approaches include the effects of psychotherapeutic interventions as well as deceptive and open label placebos on various objective and subjective markers. Jens Gaab is currently conducting studies on the conditions of behavioral change that are generally resource-conserving but associated with reductions in pleasant individual behaviors.

Prof. Dr. Janina Grabs

Janina Grabs is Professor of Sustainability Research and is responsible for social science teaching in the Master's program in Sustainable Development. In addition she is also involved in international professional associations such as the ECPR Standing Group on Regulatory Governance and the International Studies Association, and is book review editor of the journal Regulation & Governance.

Prof. Dr. Beat Hintermann

Professor of Public Finance. Research interests are in the field of empirical environmental economics, particularly the evidence-based evaluation of policy measures in the areas climate policy and mobility.

Prof. Dr. Sabine Huebner

Professor of Ancient History. Her research and teaching deal with the impact of climate change and pandemics on ancient societies and leads the interdisciplinary 'Basel Climate Science & Ancient History Lab', which was founded in 2018. Focus is placed on the reconstruction of climate variation and climate change in antiquity, social and economic impacts of climate change and pandemics in ancient societies, religious change, everyday life of lower social classes, interdisciplinary collaborations with paleoclimatology and digital humanities.

Prof. Dr. Aya Kachi

Associate Professor of International Political Economy and Energy Policy. Research foci are statistical methodology, as well as international political economy and public opinion research. Current research in energy and climate policy sheds light on policy feasibility by examining the role of different actors, such as interest groups, voters, and policymakers, in more detail.

Prof. Dr. Jens Köhrsen

Professor of Religion and Economics. His research focuses on urban energy transition processes as well as sustainable development and religion. He bridges the gap between religion-and sustainability-related research as well as practice. Religious communities have key resources (e.g., influence on the moral values and lifestyles of adherents) to influence sustainable development processes worldwide. The research team explores these resources and thus transfers religion-related as well as sociological knowledge into sustainability research. It aims to promote interdisciplinary cooperation between sustainability research and researchers in the field of religion.

[Translate to English:] Frank C. Krysiak

Prof. Dr. Frank C. Krysiak

Frank Krysiak has been Professor of Environmental Economics at the University of Basel since 2006 and is responsible for the economics part of the Master in Sustainable Development. From 2014-2021, he directed the energy research center SCCER CREST at the University of Basel. His research areas are the long-term effects of climate and energy policies as well as the economic theory of sustainability.

[Translate to English:] Sarah Nemiah Ladd

Prof. Dr. Nemiah Ladd

Nemiah Ladd is an organic geochemist studying interactions among plants, algae, humans, and climate today and throughout the recent geologic past. In particular, she uses chemical markers that are produced by plants and algae and preserved in sediment (so-called “molecular fossils”) to reconstruct past changes in rainfall rates, eutrophication, and human land-use.

Prof. Dr. Rui Mata

Associate Professor for Cognitive and Decision Sciences, Faculty of Psychology. On a mission to understand and improve human decision-making through the use and development of evidence-based practices.

[Translate to English:] Alejandra Morán Ordóñez

Prof. Dr. Alejandra Morán Ordóñez

Alejandra Morán Ordóñez is Professor of Ecosystem Ecology in the Department of Environmental Sciences. Her research focuses on conservation biology, forest ecology and the effects of global change on biodiversity and ecosystem services. She has developed integrated models for forest management and biodiversity conservation, particularly in Mediterranean forest ecosystems. Her main projects have used spatial conservation tools to evaluate trade-offs between human uses and the conservation of ecosystems and species, to optimize landscape and forest management to promote ecosystem services provision, and to identify critical areas for species and ecosystems conservation and restoration.

Prof. Dr. Oliver Nachtwey

Associate Professor of Social Structure Analysis at the Department of Social Sciences. His research focuses on the transformation of work and social modernization as well as their influence on social structure. Furthermore, he is studying changes in political representation, protests, and social movements. His recent research focuses on the social impact of digitalization, especially how digital technologies are legitimized.

Prof. Dr. Corey D. Ross

Corey D. Ross is Professor of European Global Studies and Director of the Institute for European Global Studies. His research focuses on imperialism and global environmental history in the 19th-20th centuries – or, what one might call the socio-environmental history of Europe’s relationship with the rest of the world. His work aims to reconstruct historical developments comprehensively by integrating different disciplines, themes, and methods. It explores global, transimperial, and transnational entanglements in order to reveal power relations, processes of exchange, and barriers within a historical context that moves beyond Eurocentric perspectives. The overarching goal is to contribute, through historical analysis, to a better understanding and contextualization of current political and ecological challenges.

Prof. Dr. Volker Roth

Professor of Informatics in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science. He leads the Biomedical Data Analysis research group. His research interests are in machine learning methods and their applications in life and natural sciences.

Prof. Dr. Catherine Roux

Assistant Professor of Industrial Economics and Regulation of Energy Markets. In her research, she focuses on industrial economics, applied microeconomics and game theory, competition policy, and energy markets. Especially cross-market or cross-game cooperation as well as the interplay between competition and sustainable consumer behavior and the resulting implications for market regulation. She usually combines theoretical studies with experimental laboratory methods.

[Translate to English:] Oliver Schilling

Prof. Dr. Oliver Schilling

Oliver Schilling is Professor of Hydrogeology. His research aims to improve the conceptual and quantitative understanding of surface water–groundwater interactions in diverse environments. By combining multi-scale observations of hydrological and biogeochemical processes with integrated surface–subsurface hydrological models, he characterizes and predicts the behavior of complex hydrogeological systems. Current efforts focus on novel tracer techniques and their integration into model calibration, with particular attention to interactions along gravelly alluvial rivers used for drinking water production.

Prof. Dr. Heiko Schuldt

Professor of Informatics at the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, where he leads the Databases and Information Systems Research Group. Research Interests: Big Data, novel methods for distributed management of large heterogeneous data sets, data and information integration, analysis of sensor data streams, and innovative methods for searching large multimedia data collections (Multimedia Retrieval).

Prof. Dr. Hannes Weigt

Professor of Energy Economics, Head of the Research Unit for Sustainable Energy and Water Supply (Forschungsstelle für Nachhaltige Energie und Wasserversorgung, FoNEW). His research focuses on the analysis of energy markets and energy policy, in particular on electricity markets and model-based scenario development. A special focus lies on Swiss hydropower in the context of climate change, market uncertainties, and local ecological and economic impacts.

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