Speakers

Jens Lachmund is a sociologist of science and technology (STS) and of the environment at Maastricht University, whose research has mostly employed a combined sociological and historical approach. His recent research has focused on cities, ecology, and the politics of urban natures. Thereby, he seeks to integrate approaches of science and technology studies with urban studies and constructivist environmental sociology. His book “Greening Berlin. The Co-production of Science, Politics, and Urban Nature” (Cambridge/MA, 2013) is a case study of urban ecology in the former West- and the unified Berlin which traces the interaction between ecological fieldwork practices, planning expertise, civic activism and urban space. He is also co-editor of “Science and the City”,OSIRIS 18, 2003 – together with Sven Dierig and Andrew Mendelsohn -, and of “Spatializing the History of Ecology” (New York/London, 2017) – together with Raf de Bont. He is currently engaged in research on the historical sociology of urban gardening and agriculture in London.

Stephanie Lavau is a Senior Lecturer in Interdisciplinary Environmental Practice at Melbourne University. Her research and teaching focus on social and cultural aspects of environmental management, knowledge and governance. Her research interests focus on urban water management and biodiversity conservation, and include policy-practice relations, civic ecology, contemporary and historical nature-cultures as well as knowledge practices. She leads the “Community participation in waterways management” research theme and is a member of the Research Management Committee for the Melbourne Waterway Research-Practice Partnership.

David Laws’s research focuses on the relationship between negotiation and conflict resolution, public administration, and democratic governance. Before coming to University of Amsterdam, he worked at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning and the Sloan School of Management at MIT and with the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School.  He has experience as consultant (The Ministries of Domestic Affairs and Social Affairs and Labor, multiple cities (Amsterdam, Den Haag, Enschede) as well as organizations in the U.S.(the New York Stock Exchange, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Air National Guard, Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources).

Dr. Sina Leipold is a Head of Department and professor of Environmental Politics at Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UZF) in Leipzig and professor of Environmental Politics at the University of Jena. Sina received her PhD in 2016 from the University Freiburg on the influence of interest groups on narratives of international forest policy. Since then, Sina has worked extensively on environmental governance narratives in the fields of forestry, circular economy, bioeconomy, food, and packaging. In her research, Sina combines narrative research with results from environmental footprint and life cycle analyses and collaborates with practitioners from the private and public sectors as well as civil society.

Photo: Andre Künzelmann