Speakers

Sustainable Food and Traditions Panel

Sari Iivonen

Dr Sari Iivonen works as a director of the Finnish Organic Research Institute (FORI). FORI is a multidisciplinary research and expert network that operates under the auspices of the University of Helsinki and the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke). FORI’s main task is to produce scientific knowledge on organic production throughout the whole food-chain and support the development of Finnish organic sector. She follows the scientific discussion regarding to development of organic production and consumption globally and in Finland on a daily basis. 

 

Anna Salminen

Risultato immagini per anna salminen

Anna Salminen (Ms.Sc. Forestry) is Senior Specialist at Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry currently working with the Climate Food Programme aimed to support the just transition of society towards a climate-sustainable food system with the main emphasis on reducing emissions from the consumption of food.

 

Jukka Rantala

Jukka Rantala is an expert in MTK, Farmers Union. At the moment he is following climate change issues and involved in agricultural policy planning. He has been a parttime farmer since 2005. 

 

Natasha Järviö

Natasha Järviö is a PhD student within the Future Sustainable Food Systems group led by Hanna Tuomisto. She is looking at the environmental impact of (novel) food production using life cycle assessment (LCA), and she is particularly interested in the future dietary plate and how this will impact the world around us. 

 

Arctic Panel

David Thomas

David Thomas spent 6.5 years at Liverpool University where he did his undergraduate and PhD studies. He then moved to north Germany for 7.5 years to conduct postdoctoral research at various institutions (Bremen, Bremerhaven & Oldenburg). He returned to the UK in July 1996 to join the School of Ocean Sciences at Bangor University where He became the Professor of Marine Biology (2006 to 2020), Head of School (2016 to 2019) and the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Research (2019 to 2020). His main academic interests include science and innovation strategy, encouraging future generations of scientists, conveying science to non-specialist audiences,  Arctic, Antarctic and Baltic sea ice ecology & biogeochemistry, and connections between science & art.

 

Reetta Toivanen

Risultato immagini per Reetta Toivanen

Reetta Toivanen is a full professor in Sustainability Science (indigenous sustainability) at the Helsinki Institute for Sustainability Science (HELSUS) and a docent in social and cultural anthropology at the University of Helsinki (Finland). She is the vice-director of the Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives (EuroStrorie) funded by the Academy of Finland (2018-2025). Professor Toivanen’s major areas of research and expertise are field research, ethnographic methods, anthropology of law, human rights, ethnic and national minorities, anti-discrimination in Europe, Arctic research, human rights teaching, multilingualism and language policy, and critical feminist theory.  

 

Stefan Kirchner

Risultato immagini per Stefan Kirchner

Prof. Dr. Stefan Kirchner is Research Professor of Arctic Law and the Head of the Arctic Governance Research Group at the Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi. Before moving to Finland, Stefan worked as a lawyer in private and government practice in his native country Germany. He has taught human rights and international law at universities in Finland, Germany, Italy, Ukraine, Lithuania and Greenland. His research is at the intersection of the international law of the sea, environmental law, safety, sustainability, and human rights in the Arctic. 

 

Lilia Orozco

Lilia Orozco is a Doctoral Student in the Ecosystems and Environment Research Programme (Environmental Change Research Unit (ECRU)) at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests are the response of sensitive lake ecosystems to climate variability and carbon cycling in lakes. In her PhD she focuses on the influence of hydroclimate on lake primary productivity in the Arctic. 

 

PhDs Panel

Sanna Piilo

Sanna Piilo is a last year PhD student in Ecosystems and Environment Research Programme and also belongs to the research group of Environmental Change Research Unit (ECRU). Her research is related to high-latitude peatlands from a palaeoecological perspective. She studies how peatland vegetation and thus carbon dynamics have reacted to changes in climate. During the past years she has had an opportunity to travel to interesting places to collect samples from, spend time in laboratories, analyse the data, write, study and meet interesting people. Thus doing a PhD can be really versatile. On her free time, she enjoys outdoor activities such as cross-country skiing, ice-skating, hiking and paddling.

 

Wenzi Ren

Wenzi Ren is a grant-funded researcher and a PhD candidate (Forest Pathology) in the Doctoral Programme in Sustainable Use of Renewable Natural Resources at the University of Helsinki (Finland). She has taken part in projects such as “Microbiome differences in Heterobasidion spp. Infected wood tissue and fruit bodies”, “Heterobasidion spp. Antagonistic agent detection”, and “Norway spruce resistance against Heterobasidion parviporum”.  

 

Viola Hakkarainen

Viola is an interdisciplinary PhD candidate based at the University of Helsinki and Natural Resources Institute Finland. Her research focuses on knowledge processes and sense of place in social-ecological systems. She is interested in understanding  how to enable plurality in different ecosystem governance settings for just sustainability transformations. Viola has a background in sustainability science and she received her MSc from the Stockholm Resilience Centre in 2018. In addition to the academic activities, she is a passionate (winter) cyclist and dreams about starting a window farm.

 

Career Workshop

Suvi Liikkanen

 

Suvi Liikkanen is a Career Service Director at the Union of Professionals in Natural, Environmental and Forestry Sciences Loimu. She is focused on career counselling and educational services for scientists, foresters and environmental specialist. She coordinates course palette for 15 000 members, topics vary from job search to professional development and wellness in work life. Suvi Liikkanen is also involved in Työnhakuveturi which is an organization for academic job seekers in Uusimaa region.