Farewell symposium Rik Leemans: "Reflections on aninterdisciplinary career"

On April 11th Rik Leemans, Professor of Environmental Systems Analysis, will give his farewell address, entitled "Don’t discipline us for transdisciplinarily assessing global challenges".

Prior to that there will be a symposium "Reflections on an interdisciplinary career".

Registration is possible until 27 March via: https://forms.microsoft.com/e/KZUb5DgC2N

Programme

Biosketch presenters farewell symposium Rik Leemans

Wolfgang Cramer

Professor Dr Wolfgang Cramer is an environmental geographer and global ecologist, and research director at the Mediterranean Institute for Biodiversity and Ecology (IMBE), in Aix-en-Provence (France).

Wolfgang Cramer received his academic training at the Universities of Gießen/Germany and Uppsala/Sweden. From 1987 to 1993, he taught and conducted his research at the Department of Geography, Trondheim University (Norway) while also being a frequently visiting scholar at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). In 1992, he joined the newly founded Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) in Potsdam, Germany. In 2003, he was appointed full professor of global ecology at Potsdam University. In 2011, he left Potsdam for the Mediterranean Institute for Ecology and Paleoecology (IMEP) to help its transition to IMBE. 2017, he was elected associated member of the Académie d’Agriculture de France.

Wolfgang’s scientific contributions were initially in the area of modelling forest dynamics under climate change. He then began to seek a broader understanding of biosphere dynamics at the global and continental scale, including aspects of natural and human disturbance as well as biodiversity. He has been directing a large European ecosystem modelling project, ATEAM (EU FP5), as well as its companion outreach activity, AVEC. Together, these projects have resulted in the first region-specific and comprehensive ecosystem service assessment across Europe. He has established popular, two-weeks long annual summer schools for young experts in the field of biodiversity and ecosystem services (now run by ALTER-Net).

Wolfgang has collaborated with Rik during their studies in Uppsala, at IIASA, in various EU projects, the international global change programmes, IPCC and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

Joe Alcamo

Prof. Dr Joseph Alcamo is Professor of Environmental Systems Science and the Director of the Sussex Sustainability Research Programme (SSRP) at the University of Sussex, UK.

Joe leads a multi-faceted research effort to provide "Science for the SDGs". They have advanced both climate and food security goals through new, participative designs of early warning systems in Kenya and South India. They have advanced goals for human rights and conservation of forests in several community-based studies in Ecuador, Peru, and elsewhere in Latin America.

During 2009-13 Joe served as the first Chief Scientist of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). While at UNEP he brought together large groups of scientists to produce high profile reports for policymakers on climate change, air pollution, ozone layer depletion, and food security issues. At UNEP he also played a strategic role in the international climate negotiations leading up to the Paris Agreement as initiator of UNEP's flagship “Emissions Gap” report which each year presents a highly publicized “scorecard” of whether country commitments are adequate to reach climate goals.

Joe published extensively in the areas of climate impact research, global modelling of the environment, integrated assessment modelling, and environmental scenario analysis. He has published six books on environmental themes, including a book on scenario analysis (“Environmental Futures”), and three books on climate change science and policy. He contributed to the two largest global change research alliances, the Earth System Science Partnership and Future Earth. He was co-founder and co-chair of the first global water research programme of the international research community (2004-2010).

In the 1980s, Joe played a major role in the development of the RAINS model at the International Institute of Applied Analysis in Vienna. In the 1990s he led the development of IMAGE-2, one of the first integrated global climate change models. In 1995 he directed the Center for Environmental Systems Research at the University of Kassel. Here, he led the development of the WaterGAP model, one of the first global hydrology and water system models.

Joe was born and raised in New York City and was listening to Joe Cocker at Woodstock in 1969 when the rains started coming down.

Joe has collaborated with Rik at IIASA, co-developed and applied IMAGE-2, the Snowmass Energy Modelling-Forum workshops and the international global change programmes, IPCC and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.

John Schellnhuber

Prof. dr John Schellnhuber is a German atmospheric physicist and climatologist, founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and former chair of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU). Since 1 December 2023 he is the Director General of IIASA.

John obtained a doctorate ánd habilitation in theoretical physics from respectively the Universities of Regensburg and Oldenburg. In 1981, he became a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

John studied complex systems and nonlinearity or chaos theory. As a full professor and director at the Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment at Oldenburg University, he analysed the structure of ocean currents. In 1991, he founded PIK, which is now of the world's most renowned climate research institutes. From 2001–2005 Schellnhuber served as research director of the Tyndall Centre in England and became a visiting professor at the University of Oxford He was also professor at the University of Potsdam and an external professor at the Santa Fe Institute (USA).

John proposed the 2°C guardrail for global warming which was adopted first by the German government and the European Union and then, following the Copenhagen accord in 2009, as a global target by governments worldwide. He was a coordinating lead author of the synthesis chapter of Working Group II of the IPCC's Third Assessment Report. He has warned of dire consequences of continued global warming and its climatological tipping points.

John has collaborated with Rik during the IPCC assessments (the burning embers) and the international global change programmes.

Alexander van Oudenhoven

Dr Alexander van Oudenhoven is an assistant professor in environmental sciences (CML) at Leiden University. He works on the interface between ecosystems and people. He is also Education Director of the Governance of Sustainability master’s programme. Alexander joined CML in May 2015 as a postdoctoral researcher as part of the NWO-TTW-funded NatureCoast project, which was a transdisciplinary project focusing on the ‘Sand Motor’. Alexander lectures at several MSc programmes and also teaches at Leiden University College in the Hague.

Alexander quantifies and conceptualizes contributions that nature provides to humans, in relation to environmental management, spatial planning and decision making. He focusses on coastal ecosystems.

Alexander was Lead Author at the ‘Intergovernmental science-policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services’ (IPBES), between 2015 and 2018. He is Leiden University’s IPBES focal point to the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Fisheries. In addition, Alexander is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Ecosystems and People, an interdisciplinary open access journal that addresses how biodiversity and ecosystems underpin human quality of life, and how societal activities and preferences drive changes in ecosystems.

Alexander was a doctorate candidate at Wageningen University until 2015. His research aimed to quantify the effects of management on ecosystem services. He developed a framework for indicator selection and applied and tested this framework during case studies in National Landscape ‘Het Groene Woud’ (The Netherlands), mangrove systems in Java (Indonesia) and semi-arid rangelands, both globally and in the Eastern Cape (Southern Africa). In collaboration with the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency (PBL), he developed a database of ecosystem services in relation to biodiversity, land use, land cover and management. Alexander also participated in the transdisciplinary ‘Mangrove Capital’ project in Indonesia.

Rik was Alexander’s promotor during his doctorate studies.

Leonardo Nascimento

Dr. Leonardo Nascimento works as a researcher at the NewClimate Institute in Köln. He leads projects that track climate action and evaluate greenhouse gas emissions. Leonardo participates in multiple research projects that prepare and analyse future climate-change mitigation pathways. He uses his research to provide analytical support to policymakers through policy briefs, scientific publications and direct support to line ministries. At the NewClimate Institute, he contributes to the annual updates of the Climate Action Tracker and Climate Change Performance Index projects, which evaluate national climate change commitments and policies.

Leonardo holds a degree in physics from the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Brazil and a MSc in Sustainable Energy Technology from the University of Twente in the Netherlands. Leonardo is also a guest researcher at Wageningen University and Research, where he obtained his PhD degree focusing on enabling future climate policy.

Rik was Leonardo’s promotor during his doctorate studies.

Karen Fortuin

Dr ir Karen Fortuin is currently education director of Marine Sciences. Before that, she was lecturer and education coordinator in the Environmental systems Analysis group at Wageningen University and Research.

Karen is a dedicated lecturer. She cares about her students who come from many different parts of the world and she emphasises the importance of crossing cultural and disciplinary boundaries, when teaching environmental sciences and its system analysis tools.

Karen started her doctorate research on how to improve intercultural and interdisciplinary environmental-science teaching. She evaluated several of the ESA courses and published several seminal papers in international education journals. Central in her work are the boundary-crossing skills that students have to develop. In 2015 she obtained her doctorate degree.

Rik was Karen’s promotor during her doctorate studies.

Wieteke Willemen

Prof. dr Wieteke (Louise) Willemen obtained her PhD at the Wageningen University & Research on spatial modelling of ecosystem services. She worked at the global research-for-development organization Biodiversity International in Colombia, the European Commission’s Research Center in Italy and the Cornell University in the US. Since 2014 Willemen works at the Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) of the University of Twente, where she holds a chair in Spatial Dynamic of Ecosystem Services. Willemen was also a board member of the JA@UT, the young academy of the University of Twente.

Wieteke studies the relationship between people and nature. Her research focuses on ecosystem services, nature’s benefits to people (like the regulation of water and pollination of crops), which are under increased pressure. She puts the effects of measures against land degradation on the map (often literally). In many places in the world, nature has disappeared and/or biodiversity has heavily decreased as a result of human behaviour. Governments, entrepreneurs and NGO’s are trying to solve this worldwide problem. This is the case in Baviaanskloof in South Africa for example, where one of her research projects is located. She uses satellite images to monitor the effects of these changes on people and nature.

Wieteke contributed to the IPBES assessments, the UN platform for biodiversity and ecosystem services. As lead author, she drafted a document in consultation with the 135 member countries. She investigated the information and the tools that should help decision-makers in their policy to restore nature and biodiversity.

Rik was Wieteke’s promotor during her doctorate studies.

Joyeeta Gupta

Prof. Dr Joyeeta Gupta is professor of environment and development in the global south at the University of Amsterdam and IHE Delft Institute for Water Education. She co-chaired the Earth Commission (2019-2021) together with Johan Rockström and Dahe Qin, and UNEP’s Global Environment Outlook-6 (2016-2019). She leads the programme group on Governance and Inclusive Development and Co-Convener of the University's Centre for Sustainable Development Studies. Prior to this, she was professor on Climate Change Policy and Law at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

Joyeeta was lead author in IPCC and of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Her books include The Climate Change Convention and Developing Countries. On behalf of my Delegation and Our Simmering Planet: What to do About Global Warming and the History of Global Climate Governance.

Joyeeta has been on the scientific steering committees of international programmes. Nationally, she is on the Supervisory Board of Oxfam Novib and the Royal Tropical Institute in Amsterdam. She advised three Cabinet Ministers by being the Vice-President of the Commission on Development Cooperation and member of the Advisory Council on International Affairs. She is currently vice-chair of the Curatorium of the Prins Claus Chair on Development and Equity.

Joyeeta has been the leader or participated in many projects from a diversity of funding agencies including the European Commission and the National Science Foundation in the Netherlands. Among her many activities she helped to design The Rome Declaration of 2017 on the Human Right to Water, initiated by the Pope and the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in Vatican City. Recently she obtained the prestigious Dutch Spinoza Award.

Joyeeta has collaborated with Rik during the IPCC assessments, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and the international global change programmes.