New PhD students
We are proud to welcome a new set of students to our excellent PhD group
Diana Veronica Luna-Gonzalez
Homogenisation of biomass production (crops, livestock, fisheries and forestry) and the increasing connectivity of the trade network may influence the resilience of the global production ecosystem in terms of response to diverse shocks (such as climate variability and extremes, pandemics and political and market instabilities).
Using different production and trade datasets, satellite imagery and network analysis methods, Luna-Gonzalez aims to simulate the interdependence and tele-coupling of biomass production and exchange in the global production ecosystem. This exercise may provide new insights into vulnerabilities in the global production ecosystem and their impact on human and planetary health.
Luna-Gonzalez has a formal education in nutritional science, food systems and complexity science. She also has experience in bio-economic modelling, information systems and rural development.
Before joining the SRC, she worked at the International Institute for Applied System Analysis modelling food-water through agroecological suitability analysis, hydrological data and optimisation models. She has also collaborated with research collectives on the topic of agroecology and food sovereignty.
Read more about Luna-Gonzalez here
Moa Ohlsson
Ohlsson’s PhD project explores the complex interactions between actors, biodiversity and ecosystem functionality of terrestrial landscapes when exposed to climate change. While many studies have contributed to our understanding of how climate change will influence biodiversity, little is still known about how biodiversity and the diversity of actors interact and influence climate.
Ohlsson’s research aims to understand the role of diversity for climate resilience and to explore the emergent climate-diversity feedbacks within systems where social and ecological dimensions are tightly coupled. Her project contributes to empirical resilience assessments by exploring response diversity – a critical property of resilience that is understudied in intertwined social-ecological systems in the Anthropocene.
Her research spans multiple spatial scales, from a local case study in Sweden to analysis on a European scale. Ohlsson holds a BSc in Environmental Science from Stockholm University and an MSc in Sustainable Development from the SRC. Her master’s thesis explored the drought resilience of Swedish farms.
She has previously worked as a research assistant at the SRC and the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
Mary Katherine Scheuermann
Scheuermann’s PhD project investigates how influential entities can help to facilitate transformative change in Nordic food systems. She is most interested in identifying system-level opportunities to improve population health that also support a sustainable biosphere and contribute to work that could inform public policy. She is currently mapping the legumes supply chain.
Legumes are a significantly under-consumed food in Sweden, despite offering multiple health benefits. This mapping will enable her to identify key actor roles and leverage points to activate change. Through identifying existing actors and gaps where actors are required, this research project will build a path towards increased legume consumption in Sweden, also serving to further strengthen collaboration among existing organisations for guiding food system transformation in the Nordic region.
Scheuermann holds graduate degrees in public health and social work from Washington University in St. Louis (US) and a BA in English from LaSalle University (US).
She recently worked as a public health analyst in public administration, leading interdisciplinary teams to improve the quality and accountability of private sector services.
Read more about Scheuermann here
Daniel Itzamna Avila Ortega
Ortega’s project aims to calculate the extent and net contribution of biosphere integrity provided by biodiversity to the whole economy. Given the rapid extinction of different species around the world as a result of anthropogenic activity, it is becoming increasingly necessary to determine the extent to which life on earth is compromised in terms of acting as a supporting system for ecosystem services that sustain most of the world’s economic activity.
Further, the project will advance knowledge on how cascading effects, tipping points and the other planetary boundaries affect or are affected by biodiversity decline, with the introduction of the Comprehensive Biodiversity Ecosystem Service relationship serving as a means to quantify the total impact of biodiversity on crop yields, carbon sequestration (climate mitigation) and crop yield stability (climate adaptation).
Work is currently being carried out to assess the different biodiversity metrics and how they relate to the planetary boundaries framework and the top criteria selected by ecologists.
Ortega holds a joint MSc in Industrial Ecology from Leiden University and TU Delft in the Netherlands. He also has a Postgraduate Certificate in Forest Carbon Science, Policy and Management from Michigan State University. Ortega co-founded the Mexican Center of Industrial Ecology in 2015 and Comuna Energia in 2021, in an effort to contribute to rapid decarbonisation in Mexico. He has also contributed to various worldwide assessments on circular economy, in addition to developing deepdecarbonisation scenarios and pathways for large corporations.
Patricia Villarrubia-Gómez
Villarrubia-Gómez’ research focuses on the global challenge of plastic pollution from a social and ecological standpoint. Her PhD is a collaborative project between the SRC and Gothenburg University in Sweden, in partnership with the 5 Gyres Institute in the US. She adopts a resilience, system-thinking and complex-systems approach to investigate and drive sustainable change.
She addresses the challenges of plastic pollution by focusing on international policy and social movements. She is especially passionate about equity, environmental and social justice and understanding how social groups translate scientific knowledge into effective responses and institutional change.
She graduated with a bachelor’s in Environmental Science from the University of Granada in Spain and holds a master’s in Social-Ecological Resilience for Sustainable Development, which she completed at the SRC.
For her master’s thesis, she explored the feasibility of including marine plastic pollution as a novel entity within the planetary boundaries framework.
Read more about Villarrubia-Gómez here