Prof. Dr. Olivier Berthod | ICN Business School
Olivier Berthod is Associate Professor at the Department of Human Resources and Organizational Behavior at ICN Business School. He received his Doctorate (Management) from Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, and Master Degrees from Linné Universitet, Sweden, and Université Paris-Dauphine, France. His research reports mostly on questions of organisation theory and design, specifically: organisational culture, interorganisational relations, reliability, sensemaking, decision-making, and resistance to change, with a particular interest in the public and nonprofit sectors, although not exclusively. Related projects received funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Peter Pribilla Foundation, the Wagener Foundation, the Dahlem Research School, and the industry. His work can be found in the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, Perspectives on Public Management and Governance, Public Administration, Journal of Management Inquiry, and Organizational Research Methods, among other outlets.
Dr. Natascha Bing | German Red Cross
As a research associate in the Humanitarian Assistance in the Urban Context Unit, Natascha Bing supports the team in the field of scientific standards. In close collaboration with the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit she is in charge of defining and implementing scientific and methodological quality throughout the project. This includes the evaluation of latest research findings and the translation into innovative pilot strategies contributing to strengthening international humanitarian aid in an urban context and the international humanitarian system. Natascha Bing holds a M.A. in African Studies and Political Science from the Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz, Germany. She completed her PhD in African Studies at the Institute of African Studies, Leipzig University (Germany) in November 2017.
Jun.-Prof. Dr. Verena Brinks | Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Verena Brinks is junior professor for “geography of social media and digital cultures” at the University of Mainz since September 2019. Her disciplinary background is mainly in economic geography. From May 2012 to August 2019, Verena Brinks worked as a research associate (doctoral student and post-doc) at the Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space in Erkner (near Berlin). In her dissertation she analysed processes of user innovation and intensively dealt with “communities” (particularly with the concept of “communities of practice”). As a further research topic, Verena Brinks works on new spatial settings for work and creativity which emerged as a consequence of digital practices and technologies (such as coworking spaces, Fab Labs etc.). In the last years, Verena Brinks extended her research focus towards the analysis of “crises”. She is particularly interested in the role of experts and the complex time-spatial dynamics of crisis management.
Dr. Sarah Marie Hall | University of Manchester
Sarah Marie Hall is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Manchester. She came to Manchester in 2012 as a Hallsworth Research Fellow in Political Economy. In 2015 she took up the position of Lecturer in Human Geography and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2018 and Reader in 2020. She is Co-Editor of Area, and a member of the Geoforum Editorial Board. Her research focuses on the everyday impacts of economic and political change. In recent years she has carried out research on austerity, devolution and Brexit, with a focus on how these processes shape lived experiences, practices, and relationships in families and communities. She is particularly concerned with intersecting inequalities where gender, race, class, and age are concerned. Sarah Marie Hall also engages in local activist and community groups across Greater Manchester, offering research advice, guidance and training. She also sits on the UK Government’s Department for Work and Pensions Methods Advisory Group, where she provides expertise on ethnographic, creative and participatory approaches.
Tjorven Harmsen | Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS)
is a doctoral student at the Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS). She works in a BMBF-funded empirical project on crisis management and the role of expert advice in resilience activation processes (“RESKIU”). The project aims at understanding the complex spatiotemporal dynamics the course of a crisis takes, particularly focusing on its inherent potential for structural change. Tjorven’s disciplinary background lies in sociology, mainly in systems theory. In her dissertation she investigates crisis and resilience as general phases in the development of social systems, understanding crisis as the transitional, “opening” phase between the closed forms of differentiation these systems take. With qualitative interviews on complex ship accidents she tries to capture the observational structure, which the social builds around an irritation attributed to its environment. The aim is to generate a model of criteria for “environmental sensitivity” in socio-observational structures. Under the main title “The Environment of Society” the project is supervised by Prof. Dr. Anna Henkel at the University of Passau, Germany.
Prof. Dr. Oliver Ibert | Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space
In July 2019 Oliver Ibert took over the position of the director of the Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space and Professor of Socio-Spatial Transformation at the Brandenburg University of Technology Cottbus-Senftenberg. Since 2009 he has been head of the research department „Dynamics of Economic Spaces“. From 2009-2019 he was professor of Economic Geography at the Freie Universität Berlin. In 1991 he started to study the topics Geography (major), German Literature and Political Sciences (both minor) at the Carl von Ossietzky University of Oldenburg and obtained his master’s degree in 1997. In 2002 he acquired his PhD at the University of Oldenburg and in 2009 he completed his post-doctoral habilitation thesis at the University of Bonn. In summer 2014 Oliver Ibert was a visiting professor at the Department of Political Sciences at the University of Toronto and in autumn 2018 he was a Hallsworth Visiting Professor at the Department of Geography at Manchester University. He is a member of the editorial board of Raumforschung und Raumordnung | Spatial Planning and Research and acts as a spokesperson of the working group “Concepts of Crisis” as a part of the Leibniz Research Alliance “Crises in a Globalised World”.
Alexandra Rüth | German Red Cross
Alexandra Rüth is heading the Anticipation Hub and the Knowledge and Innovation Department at German Red Cross. The Anticipation Hub has been set-up for the humanitarian system by German Red Cross jointly with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre. Alexandra Rüth has almost 15 years of experience in the humanitarian and development sector and has been working for almost 8 years for the German Red Cross. She headed before a project group developing with Forecast-based Financing one of the first anticipatory approaches for the humanitarian system. Alexandra Rüth worked in Latin America, Central-Asia and Africa and has a profound knowledge of the humanitarian system in general and more specifically on Food Security, Disaster Risk Reduction and Anticipatory Action. Her interests lie in innovation, agile approaches, participation of stakeholder groups and female leadership. She holds a MSc in Agricultural Science and a post-graduate on International Cooperation for Sustainable Development (SLE) of the Humboldt-University in Berlin.
