Visiting Scholars

Dr Tito Arosio, collaborating with Prof Ulf Büntgen

Research:

Tito Arosio is a post-doc supported by the Swiss National Foundation.
He pursued his PhD at the University of Bern, Department of Physics. He collaborated with Prof. Leuenberger and Prof. Nicolussi. He studied the stable isotopes of tree rings in a large database of wood samples that covers the last 9,000 years, to understand paleoclimate in the Alpine region. He has measured the values of the stable isotopes of Hydrogen, Oxygen, and Carbon in thousands of samples and has identified some non-climate signals they carry. He discovered that larch wood carries a deuterium signal different from other conifer species, a finding that is useful for the analysis of archeological timber specimens. His research now focuses on the analysis of the values of three stable isotopes in various databases to try to reconstruct alpine climatic variations during the Holocene.

Prof Joshua Fisher

Research: Joshua Fisher is Professor of Anthropology at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Washington (US). His research mobilizes feminist and collaborative methods as well as large-scale experimental, ethnographic workshops to study the multispecies habitability of cities within the context of the manifold threats presented by, among other things, unchecked urban development, failing infrastructure, petrochemically-driven production, and climate change. With Alex Nading (Cornell University), he is currently writing a book based on a five year project in Nicaragua, sponsored by the U.S.-based National Science Foundation (Grant #1648667). With Dr. Maan Barua, he is also interested in exploring the designed and non-designed effects of ecological infrastructures as world-making processes that enable and disable different forms of multispecies living.

Dr John Marazita, collaborating with Prof Mike Hulme

Research: (Details to follow)

Dr Ihor Radchuk

Research:

Ihor is a Senior Researcher at the Department of Environmental Research, Institute of Telecommunications and Global Information Space, National Academy of Sciences, Kyiv, Ukraine. In his PhD research defended on the topic "Environmental monitoring of limnological systems by remote sensing of the earth". The purpose of the research is to increase the efficiency and completeness of information when assessing eutrophication and strategic freshwater reserves in limnological systems of various geological origins, based on Earth remote sensing, geographic information systems and field tests.

Ihor, for more than ten years, has been studying Ukrainian water objects (rivers, lakes, and seas). His main directions of scientific research are identifying features and regularities of the processes of artificial and anthropogenic influence on the ecological state of water bodies using information, analytical tools, and technologies. Creation of a cartographic model of technogenic and anthropogenic load on local ecosystems, using a synthesis of contact and distance methods, correct application of bathymetry methods, construction of a 3D model of lakes, and research of processes of eutrophication of limnosystems. He has scientific developments 3D models of water areas of lakes Ukraine, coastal strips based on remote sensing of the Earth data process and GIS.

Prof Hilde Sommerseth, collaborating with Prof Alice Reid

Research:

Hilde L. Sommerseth, Professor of historical demography at the Department of Archaeology, History, Religious Studies and Theology, The Arctic University of Norway (UiT), and director of the Norwegian Historical Data Centre (NHDC). Collaborating with professor Alice Reid and the Cambridge Group for the History of Population and Social Structure.

Sommerseth has decades of experience working with microdata from the historical population censuses and church books of Norway and has from 2015 been a partner in the construction of the Norwegian Historical Population Register (HPR). This register enables researchers to follow individuals who resided in Norway between 1801 and 1964, their life course history nested within and across generations. Sommerseth and her team at the NHDC are responsible for formatting the HPR data for use by the international research community. This work also involves developing a public platform for dissemination of the register along with interactive tools for analysis.

Sommerseth’s research centres on historical demography, with a focus on the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Intergenerational studies is the nucleus of her interest, stretching from studies on mortality to research on household composition. Key subjects are causes of death, gendering of diseases, human capital, social inequality in health, ethnicity, masculinity, and ageing.

Dr Snizhana Zahorodnia

Research:

Dr. Snizhana Zahorodnia, Senior Researcher, Department of Environmental Research, Institute of Telecommunications and Global Information Space, National Academy of Sciences, Kyiv, Ukraine. She defended her Ph.D. on the topic "Evaluation of the ecological state of the nature reserve fund using geoinformation technologies" from the specialty "Environmental safety."

The main directions of scientific research are ecological safety of the system of nature management, lake ecosystems, wetlands, and territories of the nature reserve fund of Ukraine using the toolkit of geoinformation technologies and methods of remote sensing of the Earth. Cartographic support for managing the nature reserve fund using geoinformation systems, combining remote and on-site research.

Key subjects are developing models for analyzing anthropogenic factors' influence on the ecosystem of the nature reserve fund and improving the technology of ecological cartographic assessment of the ecological state of natural objects using geoinformation systems to support management decision-making regarding environmental safety.