Team

apl. Prof. Dr. Philipp Späth

Assoc. Professor, Head of research group 
Urban Sustainability Governance

• spaeth@envgov.uni-freiburg.de
• +49 (0) 761 203-3725
• Room 4048
• Short Bio

  Philipp combines his backgrounds in the Political Sciences, Human Geography and Science and Technology Studies (STS) to explore how unsustainability and injustices can be addressed more effectively. His current research, inter alia, focuses on governance approaches for sustainable and just cities (UrbanA project) and on ways in which contemporary energy transitions can be ‘re-coded’ in order to allow for greater social equity (ReSET project).

Dr. Bleta Arifi

Research Associate

• bleta.arifi@envgov.uni-freiburg.de
• +49 (0) 761 203-67942
• Room 4047
• Short Bio

  Bleta is an environmental social scientist with a background in philology and environmental governance. Her research is on energy politics, focusing on the intersection of socio-environmental conflicts, resistance movements, and knowledge politics in the governance of energy infrastructure projects. Her research builds on STS, Governmentality, Poststructural Policy Studies and Energy Justice research. A key interest in her research is how transitions to renewable energy systems can be rendered more equitable, and what role social movements play in this process (ReSET). In the transdisciplinary project (W-rob), she is working with practitioners to support municipalities in a socially robust implementation heating plans.

Cristina Espinosa, PhD

Assistant Professor

• cristina.espinosa@envgov.uni-freiburg.de
• +49 (0) 761 203-8499
• Room 3045
• Short Bio

  Cristina has an interdisciplinary training in the Environmental Social Sciences. Her current research focuses on counter-knowledge practices challenging the social and political structures underpinned by science, technology and expertise that enhance the expansion of extractive industries and thus produce environmental injustices. At the intersection of Political Ecology, Feminist Science and Technology Studies and Decolonial Thinking, she deploys critical interpretivist perspectives. She is interested in environmental and sustainability governance discourses, the political representation of non-human nature, and transnational activism.

Dr. Zabrina Welter

Research Associate

• zabrina.welter@envgov.uni-freiburg.de
• +49 (0) 761 203-96846
• Room 3046
• Short Bio

  Zabrina’s work examines the interlinkages between extractivism, socio-environmental conflicts, and territorial relations, with particular attention to Latin America. Her background is in Political Science with a focus on conflict resolution and peacebuilding and environmental governance studies. Her research problematizes the espansion of illegal mining in afro-descendant rural territories in Colombia. By engaging with critical perspectives from political ecology, feminist theory, and critical geography, she explores the profound impact of mining extractivism on the daily lives and territories of Black communities. Her work delves into how these communities navigate and respond to the challenges posed by such extractive activities.

Dr. Jan Zumoberhaus

Research Associate

• Jan.Zumoberhaus@futureforests.uni-freiburg.de
• +49 (0) 761 203-67941
• Room 4030
• Short Bio

  Jan is a geographer whose research focuses on epistemologies, politics, and practices of vegetation management and conservation. His PhD on protective forest management in the Swiss Alps in the context of climate change examined how foresters navigate uncertainty and an open future. Currently, he is engaged in the Excellence Cluster Future Forests, where he works on the project DM-frame, which investigates different conceptions of decision-making in forest management.

Adam Smoleń

Doktoral Candidate

• adam.smolen@futureforests.uni-freiburg.de
• +49 (0) 761 203-96845
• Room 4030
• Short Bio

  As part of the Excellence Cluster Future Forests at University of Freiburg Adam is working on epistemic dynamics in knowledge production regarding forests and forest science. He is interested in the processes that enable certain types of knowledge to gain dominance at the science-policy interface. In order to study those phenomena, he will deconstruct and challenge the distinction between knowledges, such as expert, indigenous and lay knowledges by using qualitative methods. This line of research is informed by his background in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and Social Anthropology.  

Ronja Mikoleit

Doctoral Candidate

• ronja.mikoleit@envgov.uni-freiburg.de
• Room 3046
• Short Bio

  In her research, Ronja focuses on professional knowledge practices and how we socially generate, transmit and employ knowledge and expertise on the environment in different social worlds, such as forestry. With her background in Sociology, she likes to focus on the challenges and developments of qualitative methodologies, such as ethnography. Engaging with debates in the fields of practice theories and (feminist) science and technology studies, she developed a particular interest in the role of bodies, materialities and affects in social theory and (research) practice.

Désirée Schwindenhammer

Doctoral Candidate

• desiree.schwindenhammer@envgov.uni-freiburg.de
• Short Bio

  Désirée has a background in Sociology, Social Psychology, and Environmental Governance, with a methodological focus on qualitative interviews and content analyses. In her doctoral project, she aims to investigate institutions and power dynamics in the context of coastal governance, focusing on marine protected areas in Tanzania. This ensues her previous research, which involved an institutional analysis of marine biodiversity data sharing practices in Kenya and Tanzania, with reference to the concept of knowledge commons. In her current project, she would like to increasingly engage with social and environmental justice concepts.

Silvia Monetti

Doctoral Candidate

• silvia.monetti@email.uni-freiburg.de
• Short-Bio

  Silvia works at the science-policy interface as project lead at the Nutrition and Sustainability Department of the Centre for Consumer Protection NRW and is a doctoral candidate at the Chair of Sustainability Governance. Having studied political science and environmental governance in Italy and in Germany, she subsequently worked at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy in the Department of Sustainable Production and Consumption. Her work and interests mainly focus on food policy, the transformation of food systems, just transitions, and critical food studies. In her dissertation, she examines discursive practices, dimensions of justice and their social impact using German food poverty in high-income countries and food strategies as an example. Her methodological focus includes qualitative interpretative analysis methods and poststructuralist discourse analysis.

Simon Funcke

Doctoral Candidate

• simonfuncke@web.de
• Short Bio

  Simon is an external PhD candidate at University of Freiburg and he currently works at Forschungszentrum Jülich (funding agency PtJ). His background in environmental sciences and management of renewable energies contribute to his work and research on, inter alia, renewable energies, digitalisation and decentralisation of the energy system, and social-ecological economy.

Melani Pelaez Jara

Doctoral Candidate

• melani.pelaez@envgov.uni-freiburg.de
• Short Bio

  Melani is a scientific desk-officer for climate, energy and policy issues at the state parliamentary group Bündnis 90/Die Grünen Rheinland-Pfalz and an external doctoral candidate at the Chair of Sustainability Governance.