Speakers Brochure | IIASA/OeAW Conference

Systems Analysis for Reducing 

Footprints and Enhancing 

Resilience 

SPEAKERS BROCHURE 

16-17 NOVEMBER 2022 

VIENNA, AUSTRIA AND ONLINE

SPEAKERS 

4 Arun Agrawal 

5 Floor Alkemade 

6 Chris Brunsdon 

7 Elina Brutschin 

8 Michael Clegg 

9 Sibel Eker 

10 Amin Elshorbagy 

11 Heinz Fassmann 

12 Brian D. Fath 

13 Wolfgang Fengler 

14 Settimio Ferlisi 

15 Marina Fischer-Kowalski 

16 Dan Fiscus 

17 Matteo Fontana 

18 Nicklas Forsell 

19 Dilek Fraisl 

20 Steffen Fritz 

21 Alexia Fuernkranz-Prskawetz 

22 Jim Hall 

23 Albert S. van Jaarsveld 

24 Valeria Javalera-Rincon 

25 Pavel Kabat 

26 Taher Kahil 

27 Katia Karousakis 

28 Harald Katzmair 

29 Lea Kauppi 

30 Christian Koeberl 

31 Alexander Lebjedev 

32 Hans Liljenstroem 

33 Joanne Linnerooth-Bayer 

34 Wolfgang Lutz 

35 Raimund Mair 

36 Gerald Midgley 

37 Corinna Milborn 

38 Jan Marco Mueller 

39 Adil Najam 

40 Margit Noll 

41 Martin Nowak 

42 Helga Nowotny 

43 May-Britt Ohman 

44 Amanda Palazzo 

45 Martin Polaschek 

46 Belinda Reyers 

47 Keywan Riahi 

48 Claudia Ringler 

49 Elena Rovenskaya 

50 Ursula Scharler 

51 Thomas Schinko 

52 Linda See 

53 Till Spranger 

54 Sigrid Stagl 

55 Gerhard Svolba 

56 Maria Uhle 

57 Eeva Vilkkumaa 

58 Fabian Wagner 

59 Peter T. Warren, CBE 

60 Barbara Willaarts 

61 Wilfried Winiwarter

Arun Agrawal 

Professor, School for Environment and 

Sustainability, University of Michigan, USA 

Short Biography 

Arun Agrawal is Samuel Trask Dana Professor of Governance and Sustainability at the 

School for Environment and Sustainability, affiliated faculty at the Gerald R. Ford School 

of Public Policy, and Faculty Associate at the Center for Political Studies at the 

University of Michigan. 

His research and teaching emphasize the politics of international development, 

institutional change, conservation, and sustainability. He has conducted research in 

more than 20 countries in the tropical world, and his papers have appeared in Science, 

PNAS, Conservation Biology, Development and Change, and various Nature journals. 

Preceding his work at U-M, Agrawal was educated at Duke University, the Indian 

Institute of Management, and Delhi University and has held teaching or research 

positions at Yale, Florida, McGill, Berkeley, and Harvard among other universities. 

Agrawal is also the author of “Greener Pastures” and “Environmentality.” He serves on 

the Editorial Board for Ecology and Society and PNAS. Agrawal was elected to the 

National Academy of Sciences in 2018. 

Floor Alkemade 

Chair Technology, Innovation and Society Group, 

Eindhoven University of Technology, 

The Netherlands 


Floor Alkemade is full professor of Economics and Governance of Technological 

Innovation at Eindhoven University of Technology. She received an ERC Consolidator 

grant (2022), a Vidi grant (2014) and a Veni grant (2008) to work on research projects 

on innovation for sustainability. Previously she was affiliated with the Copernicus 

Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University and the Dutch National 

Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science (CWI). 

Floor Alkemade received her PhD in Agent Based Evolutionary Economics, from TU/e in 

2004. She holds an MSc in Artificial Intelligence from VU University Amsterdam. Floor is 

associate editor of the Journal of Environmental Innovation and Societal Transitions. In 

2015 she joined the Technological, Innovation and Society group at TU/e. Floor uses 

data-driven and social simulation approaches to analyse innovation for sustainability at 

different scales. Her recent ERC project FAST: Fostering Social Tipping dynamics to 

Accelerate Energy Transitions, aims to capture social feedbacks and interactions in 

transition models.

Chris Brunsdon 

Professor, Geocomputation, National University of 

Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland 


Chris Brunsdon is Professor of Geocomputation at the National University of Ireland, 

Maynooth. Prior to that, he was Professor of Human Geography at the University of 

Liverpool. 

He has research interests in developing spatial data analysis methods, and 

reproducibility and inference for these methods. He was one of the developers of the 

technique known as Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR), and has authored a 

number of books on using the R statistical programming language. He was recently 

involved in advising the Irish government on modelling the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Elina Brutschin 

Research Scholar, Energy, Climate, and 

Environment Program, International Institute for 

Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) 


Elina Brutschin joined IIASA as a research scholar in 2019, and works with the IIASA 

Energy, Climate, and Environment (ECE) Program, with a research focus on bridging 

insights from the political economy and modelling studies of energy. 

In her most recent line of work, she has focused on developing tools to evaluate 

ambitious climate scenarios from different perspectives using interdisciplinary insights. 

Her work on feasibility evaluation of scenarios was included in the recent AR6 IPCC 

WGIII assessment. The insights from the feasibility evaluations are now used to 

develop a new generation of scenarios within the ENGAGE project that would take 

different feasibility risks into account. 

Elina is interested in further development of approaches that bring in insights from 

other disciplines into the Integrated Assessment Models through new narratives and 

adjustments of existing assumptions. 

6 7

Michael Clegg 

Council Chair, International Institute for Applied 

Systems Analysis (IIASA) 

Sibel Eker 

Assistant Professor, System Dynamics, Radboud 

University, The Netherlands 


Michael T. Clegg, served on the faculty of four US universities over a 42 year period 

and was most recently Donald Bren Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of 

California, Irvine. In the 1990s, Clegg served as dean of the College of Natural & 

Agricultural Sciences at UC Riverside and he funded the Genomics Institute at that 

Institution. Clegg is a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the American 

Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society. He is a Fellow of 

the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS) and a corresponding Member of several 

academies in Latin America and Africa. 

Clegg has an extensive international service record, including 12 years as Foreign 

Secretary of the US National Academy of Sciences and four years Vice President 

(External) of the International Council of Science (ICSU). He also served for six years 

as the Co-Chair of the InterAmerican Network of Academies of Science (IANAS) and as 

the first Treasurer of the InterAcademy Partnership (IAP). He is currently Chair of the 

Council of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. 


Dr. Sibel Eker is an Assistant Professor of System Dynamics at Radboud University, 

Nijmegen School of Management and a Research Scholar at International Institute for 

Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria. 

Her interdisciplinary research profile combines systems analysis and engineering, 

decision sciences and social sciences, and her work brings systems thinking and 

uncertainty focus to climate change and sustainability problems with model-based 

approaches. Her current research interests center around the drivers and implications 

of demand-side climate change mitigation, and co-production of mitigation and 

sustainability scenarios through simple integrated assessment models. 

Clegg’s research specialty is population genetics and molecular evolution where he has 

published extensively. His most notable work was on the dynamics of linked systems of 

genes in plans and Drosophila, on the molecular evolution of the plant chloroplast 

genome and on using molecular tools to trace the domestication history of barley and 

avocado. 

8 9

Amin Elshorbagy 

Professor, Hydrology and Water Resources 

Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, Canada 


The research and expertise of Dr. Elshorbagy are focused on, and link, the areas of 

hydrologic and water resources systems modelling and decision analysis to support the 

decision-making process. He also works extensively on integrated water resources 

management of transboundary rivers, attempting to address the challenges of 

sustainable utilization of water resources in light of the past hydroclimatic conditions as 

well as possible future changes. Water-energy-food nexus is an emerging, central 

theme of Elshorbagy’s current research as the second-generation approach of 

managing integrated resources, including water. 

Dr. Elshorbagy has been an Associate Editor of the prestigious AGU’s Water Resources 

Research Journal for nine years and served as Editor of the Journal of 

Hydroinformatics. He served as a referee for scientific grants submitted to NOAA, 

NSERC, MITACS, Chile Research Fund, NSERC research chair positions, and for several 

tenure and promotion cases of professors at Canadian, American, and Middle Eastern 

Universities. 

Dr. Elshorbagy is a well cited scholar and published over 150 publications in 

international journals and conferences and supervised/advised over 70 Masters, 

Doctoral, and Postdoctoral researchers. He worked on research projects for municipal 

and provincial governments, and secured funding from all levels of government in 

Canada, and industry. 

Heinz Fassmann 

President, Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) 


Faßmann concluded his studies in Geography and Economic and Social History at the 

University of Vienna with a PhD in social history and a habilitation in Human Geography 

and Spatial Planning. In 1992 he became the director of the Institute of City and 

Regional Research of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. After being appointed 

Professor of Applied Geography (Geo-Informatics) at the Technical University Munich in 

1996 and a Professor for Applied Geography, Spatial Research and Regional Planning at 

the University of Vienna in 2000, he was nominated the Dean of the Faculty of 

Geosciences, Geography and Astronomy of the University of Vienna in 2006. 

In 2011 he became the Vice-Rector of Human Resources and International Relations 

and in 2015 the Vice-Rector for Research and International Affairs of the University of 

Vienna. He has served as Austrian Federal Minister of Education, Science and Research 

since January 2020 to December 2021 and served in the same capacity from December 

2017 to June 2019. 

Faßmann was the Chair of the Expert Council for Integration at the Austrian Ministry 

for Europe, Integration and Foreign Affairs, a founding member of the Expert Council 

of German Foundations for Integration and Migration in Berlin and member of the 

Commission on Migration of the Austrian Ministry of the Interior. He is a permanent 

member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Academia Europaea and his 

achievements have been recognized with a number of awards. 

10 11

Brian D. Fath 

Senior Research Scholar, Advancing Systems 

Analysis Program, International Institute for 


Wolfgang 

Fengler 

CEO & Founder, World Data Lab 


Brian D. Fath is a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Towson 

University (Maryland, USA) teaching courses on Ecosystem Ecology, Environmental 

Science, and Human Ecology. He is also a Senior Research Scholar at the International 

Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (Laxenburg, Austria) and since 2011, the 

Scientific Coordinator of IIASA Young Scientists Summer Program. 

He has published over 200 research papers, reports, and book chapters on 

environmental systems modeling, specifically in the areas of network analysis, urban 

metabolism, and sustainability. He co-authored, among others, the books A New 

Ecology: Systems Perspective (2020), Foundations for Sustainability: A Coherent 

Framework of Life–Environment Relations (2019), and Flourishing within Limits to 

Growth: Following Nature’s Way (2015). He served as Editor for 6-volume Handbook of 

Environmental Management (2020) and 4-volume Encyclopedia of Ecology (2019). 


Dr. Wolfgang Fengler is the Founder and CEO of World Data Lab. 

At TEDxVienna in November 2014, Wolfgang launched his first data 

machine population.io, which he developed together with a core team, including Samir 

KC from IIASA. Population.io was also endorsed by Bill Gates. 

Aftershock (2020) featured him as one of the world’s 100 leading futurists and the 

German weekly DER SPIEGEL called him a “big data virtuoso”. Before WDL, Wolfgang 

spent over 20 years at the World Bank in senior positions. 

Dr. Fath is also Editor-in-Chief for the journal Frontiers in Sustainable Resource 

Management and past Editor in Chief of Ecological Modelling (2009 – 2020). He was 

the 2016 recipient of the Prigogine Medal for outstanding work in systems ecology and 

twice a Fulbright Distinguished Chair (Parthenope University, Naples, Italy, in 2012 and 

Masaryk University, Czech Republic, in 2019). 

12 13

Settimio Ferlisi 

Professor, Geotechnical Engineering, University of 

Salerno, Italy 


Settimio Ferlisi is Full Professor of Geotechnical Engineering at the University of Salerno 

– UNISA (Italy) where he currently teaches “Geotechnics” and “Foundations”, 

respectively offered in the master’s degree in Building Engineering-Architecture and in 

the master’s degree in Civil Engineering. 

In the scientific field, the main topics addressed deal with the analysis of the 

mechanical response of saturated structurally-complex porous media, the behavior of 

shallow foundations and leaning towers, the risk to life induced by rockfalls and 

hyperconcentrated flows, the vulnerability of buildings in subsidence- and slow-moving 

landslide-affected areas at different scales. 

In addition to his publications, the results of the scientific activity are testified by the 

participation in the Center of Excellence on the Hydrogeological Risk of UNISA, in three 

projects of relevant national interest (on one occasion as scientific head of research 

unit) and in an EU-funded research project. 

He is currently the Director of the Geotechnical Laboratory of the Department of Civil 

Engineering of UNISA and the President of the International School on “LAndslide Risk 

Assessment and Mitigation” (LARAM). 

Marina Fischer- 

Kowalski 

Professor Emeritus, Institute for Social Ecology, 

University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, 

Austria 


With a Ph.D. in sociology, Dr. Fischer-Kowalski was discontent with the Social Sciences 

disregard for Nature as well as natural scientists’ common disregard for society. In the 

late 1980s, an interdisciplinary faculty offered her the opportunity to found, and for 

many years, direct the Institute for Social Ecology in Vienna, Austria, and build up a 

staff of social and natural scientists, with whom she developed the paradigm of social 

metabolism and colonization of nature. 

This interdisciplinary strand proved successful and paved Dr. Fischer-Kowalski’s way to 

becoming, inter alia, professor for Social Ecology at Klagenfurt University and later 

BOKU, President of the International Society for Industrial Ecology, Chair of the 

Scientific Advisory Board of the Potsdam Institute of Climate Impact Research (PIK), 

and President of the International Society for Ecological Economics. 

As expert member of UN’s International Resource Panel, she introduced the socioeconomic 

metabolism perspective there, became lead author to several of its 

publications, and establish the metrics of social metabolism (MEFA: material and 

energy flow accounting) as common statistics at Eurostat and on the UN level at SEEA. 

This metrics allows to describe societies’ economic performance in biophysical terms. 

14 15

Dan Fiscus 

R&D Scientist, Berkeley Springs Instruments, USA 


Dan is R&D scientist with Berkeley Springs 

Instruments and ecologist with the Research Alliance for Regenerative Economics 

(RARE). He works, lives, and grew up in the Appalachian region of Western Maryland. 

Dan published articles in soil ecology, ecosystem ecology, theoretical ecology, 

sustainability, and regenerative economics. He co-authored two books in sustainability 

science, including Foundations for Sustainability: A Coherent Framework of Life– 

Environment Relations (2018) with Brian Fath. 

He was assistant professor at Frostburg State University (FSU, 2007-2012), with 

teaching and research in forest ecology and sustainability. As Sustainability Liaison with 

FSU (2012-2016), he led creation of the President’s Advisory Council for Sustainability 

and advised students who created the Student Sustainability Fee. He co-founded the 

Western Maryland Food Council (WMFC, 2015) and served as Council Coordinator 

(2019 -2020). With WMFC, he helped convene partners collaborating for food system 

change. Dan’s current work focuses on R&D for new applications of ultrasonic sensors. 

He also works on change in science to facilitate solutions of the chronic, systemic 

global ecological multi-crisis. This work is at the RARE website: https://rare-sci.net/ 

article/ 

Matteo Fontana 

Project Officer, Joint Research Centre, European 

Commission 


Matteo Fontana is a Project Officer at the Joint Research Centre of the European 

Commission, where is part of the Centre of Advanced Studies project “Computational 

Social Science for Policy”. From 2019 to 2021 he has been a Postdoctoral Researcher at 

the Modelling and Scientific Computing Lab of Politecnico di Milano, where he was 

involved in the development of an early warning system for geo-hazards in 

collaboration with the Italian Space Agency. 

He holds a PhD in Management Engineering from Politecnico di Milano, where he 

studied the application of novel statistical learning methodology to climate change 

economics research. 

His primary scientific aim is to explore and demonstrate how innovative data sources 

and advanced modelling techniques can advise the policymaking of governments and 

international organisations. He is a statistician/data scientist by training, he is mainly 

interested in applications of data science in economics, demography and migration 

studies. His main theoretical interests lie in the realm of nonparametric statistics 

(namely hypothesis testing and forecasting), as well as in the modelling of complex 

data objects. 

For fun, Dan plays ultimate Frisbee and soccer (football), enjoys hiking, music, poetry, 

composting, and loves time with wife, Tracy, family, children, and grandchildren. 

16 17

Nicklas Forsell 

Senior Research Scholar, Biodiversity and Natural 

Resources Program, International Institute for 


Dilek Fraisl 

Research Scholar, Advancing Systems Analysis 

Program, International Institute for Applied 



Nicklas Forsell joined the Ecosystems Services and Management (ESM) Program in 

2012 as a postdoctoral research scholar on a scholarship given by IIASA. His current 

research interests include the use of optimization models to analyze the links between 

forest, agricultural, and energy planning. By mean of enhancing and linking large-scale 

assessment models, his research focus on developing integrated assessments of 

national and global policies. 

Dr. Forsell obtained his MSc degree in mathematics from Mid Sweden University and 

his PhD in economics from the Swedish University of Agricultural Science (SLU) in 

collaboration with the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA). Within 

his PhD thesis, he considered long-term forest management under risk and uncertainty. 

By means of mathematical programming models, he analyzed the implications of 

considering stochastic damage events and spatial dependencies between forest stands 

when optimizing management policies of large-scale forest estates. Prior to joining 

IIASA, Dr. Forsell worked at MINES ParisTech, France, where he focused on long-term 

energy system analysis and particularly focused on the integration of bioenergy 

production into national and global energy system models. 


Dilek Fraisl is a research scholar in the Novel Data Ecosystems for Sustainability 

(NODES) Research Group of the IIASA Advancing Systems Analysis Program. She has a 

PhD in Sustainability Transitions from the University of Natural Resources and Life 

Sciences Vienna (BOKU) in Austria. 

Fraisl’s research interests are sustainable development, data and statistics, Earth 

Observation, and citizen science as theory, practice, and evidence-base for policy 

development. She has worked in the areas of data governance and data management, 

including research on citizen science data quality. She has led and contributed to 

citizen science projects related to marine litter, land use and land cover, as well as 

other environmental issues funded by the European Commission, UN agencies, and 

other donors. 

Fraisl has published scientific papers in areas of sustainable development, data and 

statistics, citizen science, and Earth Observations, and also contributed to several UN 

reports such as Measuring Progress: Environment and SDGs and Understanding the 

State of the Ocean: A Global Manual on Measuring SDG 14.1.1, SDG 14.2.1 and SDG 

14.5.1 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). 

She has several board memberships with scientific communities, the UN, and other 

global initiatives, including the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network 

Thematic Research Network on Data and Statistics (SDSN TReNDS), the UN Framework 

Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Resilience Frontiers, the Group on Earth 

Observations (GEO), and the Citizen Science Global Partnership (GCSP), among others. 

She is also involved in the organizing committees and scientific advisory boards of 

several European and global conferences including the UN World Data Forum. 

18 19

Steffen Fritz 

Strategic Initiatives Program Director, 

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis 

(IIASA) 


Steffen Fritz is the IIASA Strategic Initiatives Program Director and a researcher in the 

Novel Data Ecosystems Research Group of the Advancing Systems Analysis Program. 

He holds a Master of Science degree in Geographical Information for Development 

from the University of Durham, UK, and a PhD from the University of Leeds, UK. After 

spending time as a researcher at the Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Ispra, Italy, Fritz 

joined IIASA as a research scholar, where he has since become the initiator and driving 

force behind Geo-Wiki.org and several other projects. 

He was the principal investigator of the European Research Council (ERC) funded 

CrowdLand Consolidator Grant and the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Framework 

Programme for Research and Innovation funded LandSense and WeObserve projects. 

He is currently leading the development of the new Picture Pile Platform, which is 

funded by an ERC Proof of Concept Grant. In the various capacities he acted in since 

2009, including coordinator, principal investigator, work package, or task leader, Fritz 

has been responsible for a diverse range of tasks and an overall budget of 

approximately EUR 4.2 million. He has more than 160 peer-reviewed publications and 

has widely published in high-level journals. 

Fritz’s research interests include transformative societal and policy solutions, machine 

learning and artificial intelligence, earth observation, citizen science, crowdsourcing, 

volunteered geographical information, and citizen generated data. He also has a keen 

interest in applications of Earth Observation to food security, land-use science, global 

and regional vegetation monitoring, crop yield and crop acreage estimations of 

agricultural crops, serious gaming, gamification, in-situ data collection of land use and 

land cover data via mobile technologies, and the role of citizen science for the 

monitoring and implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. 

Alexia 

Fuernkranz- 

Prskawetz 

Professor in Mathematical Economics, TU Wien 

and Deputy Director, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID), Austria 


Alexia Fürnkranz-Prskawetz is Professor of Mathematical Economics at TU Wien, deputy 

director at the Vienna Institute of Demography, Austrian Academy of Sciences and 

research associate at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis, 

Laxenburg, Austria. 

After her study of Technical Mathematics at TU Wien, she attended a postgraduate 

study at the University of Chicago in Economics and a postdoctorate at the 

Demography Department of the University of California, Berkley. In 1998 she received 

the Venia for “Population Economics and Applied Econometrics” at TU Wien. From 1998 

to 2003 she was head of an independent research group on “Population, Economy and 

Environment” at the MPI for Demography, Rostock. 

Her main areas of research are in the economic consequences of population and 

individual ageing, long run economic growth and the interrelationship between 

population, economy and environment. 

She is full member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, member of Leopoldina 

(Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften) and member of Academia Europaea. 

20 21

Jim Hall 

Professor, Environmental Change Institute, 

University of Oxford, UK 


Jim Hall FREng is Professor of Climate and Environmental Risks in the University of 

Oxford and Director of Research in the School of Geography and the Environment. 

Before joining the University of Oxford in 2011 to become Director of the University’s 

Environmental Change Institute, Prof. Hall held academic positions in the Newcastle 

University and the University of Bristol. 

Prof. Hall is internationally recognised for his research on risk analysis and decision 

making under uncertainty for water resource systems, flood and coastal risk 

management, infrastructure systems and adaptation to climate change. Prof. Hall is a 

member of the Prime Minister’s Council for Science and Technology and is a 

Commissioner of the National Infrastructure Commission. He is Chair of the Science 

Advisory Committee of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). 

He was a member of the UK independent Committee on Climate Change Adaptation 

from 2009 to 2019. 

Prof. Hall’s group in the University of Oxford is at the forefront of risk analysis of 

climatic extremes and their impacts on infrastructure networks and economic systems, 

from local to global scales. He led the development of the National Infrastructure 

Systems Model (NISMOD), which was used for the UK’s first National Infrastructure 

Assessment and for analysis of the resilience of energy, transport, digital and water 

networks in Great Britain. His group developed the first national water resource 

systems simulation model for England and Wales. Prof. Hall conceived of, and now 

chairs, the UK’s Data and Analytics Facility for National Infrastructure (DAFNI). His 

systems analysis methods have been applied worldwide, including in Argentina, China, 

Curacao, St Lucia, Tanzania and Vietnam. 

Albert S. van 

Jaarsveld 

Director General, International Institute for 



Albert van Jaarsveld was appointed 11th Director General of the International Institute 

for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in 2018. Prior to joining IIASA, he was Vice- 

Chancellor and Principal of the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, and 

President and CEO of the South African National Research Foundation (NRF). 

Van Jaarsveld obtained his PhD in Zoology (University of Pretoria), pursued 

postdoctoral studies and research in conservation biology and global security in 

Australia and the UK, and completed executive management training at Harvard 

University. His research work focused on biodiversity, conservation planning, 

biodiversity and climate change, and ecosystem services. He was appointed full 

professor at both the Universities of Pretoria and Stellenbosch and published more 

than 100 primary research papers, including highly cited works in Science and Nature. 

Van Jaarsveld served as co-chair of the MEA follow-up: Sub-global assessments, 

member of the International Council for Science (ICSU) nominations committee, IPBES 

focal point, Chaired the G8 science ministers’ group of senior officials on global 

research infrastructure, chair of IGFA, co-Chair of Belmont Forum, member of the ICSU 

review panel (2013), IPBES external review panel (2018), Future Earth external review 

Panel (2020) and on the ISC Commission on Missions for Sustainability (2021). 

He has published four books, including, The Future of National Infrastructure: A 

System-of-Systems Approach, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 

2016. 

22 23

Valeria Javalera- 

Rincon 

Research Scholar, Advancing Systems Analysis 

Program, International Institute for Applied 



Dr. Valeria Javalera holds a Ph.D. (cum laude) in Automatic Control, an MSc. in 

Computer Science and an Engineering degree in Computer Systems. She has 

participated in several projects in the EU related to distributed Optimization of natural 

resources and has more than 15 years of teaching experience in Computer Science. Dr. 

Javalera’s main contributions are developing Machine Learning methods to solve multiobjective 

and multi-agent optimization problems where a Pareto optimum is needed. 

At IIASA, Dr. Javalera is the PI of The “Food, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Land-Use, and 

bio Energy” (FABLE) project, wherewith her team has developed the Smart Linker 

Architecture. In FABLE the Smart Linker Architecture is used to link land-use models 

from 24 regions/countries participating in the project. Part of her work in FABLE is to 

help coordinate the collaboration between the different country teams to address some 

SDGs by aligning countries’ land-use planning through sustainable international trade. 

Dr. Javalera is also the PI of the “Land-use planning and financial innovation to 

increase Mexico’s resilience to climate change” Project, where IIASA contributes to 

developing novel participatory Land-use planning tools at different layers to increase 

small farmer resilience to Climate Change in vulnerable areas. 

Pavel Kabat 

Secretary-General, International Human Frontier 

Science Program Organization (HFSPO) 


Trained as a mathematician and hydrologist, Professor Kabat has worked in the field of 

earth system sciences since the early 1980s, with a focus on transdisciplinary 

approaches, land-atmosphere interactions, and biogeochemical feedbacks. In July 

2020, he was appointed Secretary General of the International Human Frontier Science 

Program Organization (HFSPO) after serving as the inaugural Chief Scientist and 

Research Director of the Geneva based World Meteorological Organization (WMO) of 

the United Nations and as Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the 

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg, Austria. 

HFSPO was established in 1989 by the G7 nations and the European Commission to 

advance international research at the frontier of the life sciences. It is supported by the 

G7 nations, together with the European Commission, Switzerland, Australia, India, 

Israel, New Zealand, Singapore, and the Republic of Korea. The HFSP frontier network 

includes about 7,500 scientists, among whom 28 HFSPO awardees have gone on to win 

the Nobel Prize. 

Since late 1990st he has been Professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands 

and is the co-author of around 450 publications and (co)editor of numerous special 

issues of peer reviewed international journals. 

In 2013, he was named by Her Majesty Queen Beatrix Knight in the Order of the 

Netherlands Lion, which recognizes excellence in the arts, science, sport, and 

literature. In 2018, he was awarded the Austrian Cross of Honor for Science and Art, 

First Class. 

24 25

Taher Kahil 

Water Security Research Group Leader, 

Biodiversity and Natural Resources Program, 




Dr. Taher Kahil is the group leader of the Water Security Research Group at IIASA. His 

research interests are in the areas of integrated biophysical economic modeling for 

basin-scale water policy analysis, the economics of water allocation and water quality, 

and evaluation of adaptation policy interventions to global changes in water and 

agriculture. 

Dr. Kahil leads several international research projects on water-food-energy nexus 

management, upscaling of sustainable intensification practices, and assessment of 

water security. He has published over 50 publications including peer-reviewed articles, 

book chapters, and policy briefs. Dr. Kahil is a topic editor at International Journal of 

Environmental Research and Public Health (MDPI), associate editor at Frontiers in 

Water (Frontiers) and guest editor for a special issue at Water Economics and Policy 

(World Scientific). 

Dr. Kahil serves currently as alternate governor and chair of the global change task 

force at the World Water Council. 

Katia Karousakis 

Biodiversity Programme Leader, Organisation for 

Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 


Katia Karousakis works in the Environment Directorate at the Organisation for 

Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), where she leads the Biodiversity, 

Land Use and Ecosystems (BLUE) programme. Her work focuses on the economics and 

policy of biodiversity, covering areas such as effective design of policy instruments, 

biodiversity finance and mainstreaming. 

Recent work includes OECD (2021), Biodiversity, Natural Capital and the Economy: A 

Policy Guide for Finance, Economic and Environment Ministers, prepared for the UK G7 

Presidency; OECD (2019), Biodiversity: Finance and the Economic and Business Case 

for Action, prepared for the French G7 Presidency; and OECD (2021), Tracking 

Economic Instruments and Finance for Biodiversity 2021. 

Katia joined the OECD in 2006 working on climate change issues, with previous 

experience working on other environmental issues such as water management, waste 

and transport. 

An environmental economist by training, Katia has a PhD from UCL, London, and a 

Masters’ degree from Duke University, USA. 

26 27

Harald Katzmair 

Founder & CEO, FASresearch, Austria 


Dr. Harald Katzmair, founder and director of the Vienna-based analysis and consulting 

company is a leading expert in the field of applied social network analysis with a focus 

on power relations, innovation, and strategic situation analysis. 

Born in Linz, Harald Katzmair studied sociology and philosophy at the University of 

Vienna, completing his PhD in 1996. From 1992 to 2000 he worked as a research 

assistant at the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration. His 

lifelong commitment to teaching and public outreach supports and extends his 

contributions to applied research consulting. 

Since 1992 he has taught at various universities in and around Vienna, including the 

University of Vienna, the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, 

and the University of Applied Arts. He has also been invited to deliver lectures for 

faculty seminars and public audiences at Harvard, Oxford, the University of California, 

Berkeley, and many other tier-one research institutions worldwide. Over the course of 

his career, Dr. Katzmair has published more than 50 research papers in professional 

journals and has been involved in over 2000 international projects and has written a 

book entitled: The Formula of Power (2011), an analysis of the social and economic 

foundations of power. 

Lea Kauppi 

Council Vice Chair, International Institute for 



Dr. Lea Kauppi has been Director General of the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE), 

a multidisciplinary environmental research institute since 1995 until October 2020. 

Lea Kauppi received her PhD from the University of Helsinki in 1984. She was awarded 

Honorary Doctorate in Technology at the Aalto University in 2018. Her research focus 

has been on agricultural pollution of rivers and lakes, modeling of impacts of 

acidification, impacts of climate change as well as management of transboundary 

waters. She has a long experience on working at the science –policy interface related 

to various environmental issues and was a member of the International Resource Panel 

of UNEP in 2008-2016. She has also been frequently asked to serve as evaluator of 

research proposals and as a panel member of institutional reviews in several European 

countries. 

Since 2016 she is a member and since 2018 a Vice Chair of the Council of the 

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. 

As a social scientist, management philosopher and entrepreneur, Harald Katzmair 

makes new paths in strategy and decision-making processes visible. With his visionary 

understanding of network science and resilience theory he has supported clients from 

the private as well as the public sector for over 25 years now. 

28 29

Christian Koeberl 

Chair, Austrian IIASA Committee; IIASA Council 

Member for Austria, International Institute for 


Alexander 

Lebedev 

Research Specialist, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden 


Christian Koeberl is full professor of geosciences (impact research and planetary 

geology) at the University of Vienna, Austria, as well as full member of the Austrian 

Academy of Sciences, where he is chair of the Austrian IIASA Committee. From 2010 

to 2020, he was director general of the Natural History Museum Vienna. 

He studied chemistry, physics, and astronomy, obtained his PhD in 1983, and his 

“habilitation” in the geosciences in 1990. He had visiting scientist appointments at, 

among others, the Lunar and Planetary Institute and NASA Johnson Space Center in 

Houston, and the Carnegie Institution in Washington, and was visiting professor at, 

e.g., Dartmouth College (New Hampshire) and the University of the Witwatersrand 

(South Africa). His research deals mostly with impact craters, especially geochemical, 

mineralogical, and petrographic studies, and the early Earth, meteorites, and planetary 

geology. 

His publication record includes about 500 peer-reviewed scientific papers, many of 

which deal with impact craters; asteroid 15963 is named in his honor “Koeberl”. Among 

other honors, he received the “Barringer Medal” of the Meteoritical Society for his 

impact research. 


Alexander is a medical doctor and neuroscientist with over 15 years of experience in 

clinical and biomedical research. He received his medical degree from I.P. Pavlov State 

Medical University of St. Petersburg with training in psychiatry and completed his PhD 

in Norway at the University of Bergen, working with applications of machine learning 

and computational neuroimaging in the diagnostics of neurodegenerative diseases. He 

then completed two postdocs and assistant professorship at Aging Research Center 

and Karolinska Institutet in related areas of biomedical research expanding on 

population studies and computational neuroscience of belief formation. He is currently 

holding a research specialist at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at Karolinska 

Institutet. 

His current academic work is focused on understanding complex relationships between 

global societal dynamics and people’s health, wellbeing, beliefs, and decision-making. 

As a part of his academic career, he published dozens of peer-reviewed articles on 

brain imaging, psychopharmacology and socionomics. Alexander’s mission is to develop 

novel wellbeing models that foster individual and societal resilience. 

At the session “New Frontiers in Systems Analysis Theories, Methods, and Tools”, he 

will be speaking about his studies of social mood and its implications for public health, 

clinical research and policy-making. 

30 31

Hans 

Liljenstroem 

Director, Agora for Biosystem, Sweden 


Hans Liljenström (born in 1956) received his MSc in Engineering Physics in 1982 and 

PhD in Theoretical Physics in 1987 at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), 

Stockholm, Sweden. He spent a postdoc period at Caltech, 1989-90, developing 

neurocomputational models related to perception and learning. In the 1990’ he worked 

as an associate professor in Theoretical Biophysics at KTH, and since 2001 is a full 

professor in Theoretical Biology and Biophysics at the Dept. of Energy and Technology, 

SLU, Sweden. 

Liljenström is the founding director of Agora for Biosystems, an international research 

centre administered by the Sigtuna Foundation. His research interests include 

mathematical modelling of biological systems and processes at the micro, meso, and 

macro levels. In particular, complex dynamics, including oscillations and chaos, as well 

as the link between neural and mental processes. 

His specialty is relating structure, dynamics and function of biological networks. Lately, 

his work is focused on computational models of human decision making, with 

relevance to societal transformation. He has been co-coordinator (2012-16) of the EU 

project COMPLEX on the transition towards a low carbon society. Currently (2019-23), 

he is a PI of an international Templeton-Fetzer project on the Neurophilosophy of Free 

Will. 

Joanne 

Linnerooth- 

Bayer 

Emeritus Research Scholar, Population and Just 

Societies Program, International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) 


Joanne Linnerooth-Bayer focuses on global change with particular interest in the risk of 

extreme events, nature-based solutions (NBS) for their mitigation, insurance for 

transferring risk, and participatory processes for inclusive stakeholder engagement. 

She and her colleagues have designed and tested novel stakeholder co-design 

techniques, as well as developed policy options to support risk reduction, risk transfer, 

and other forms of pro-active disaster risk management. 

Trained in engineering and economics (Carnegie-Mellon University, University of 

Maryland), her interdisciplinary work includes understanding multiple perspectives 

(plural rationalities) on climate change and other global policy issues, particularly as 

they relate to policy interventions that are considered equitable and legitimate. 

Linnerooth-Bayer has over 100 journal publications and consultancy reports, including 

articles in Nature Climate Change, Science, and PNAS. She is a founding member of 

the Munich Climate Insurance Initiative as well as the Austrian Climate Research 

Program. She serves on numerous professional committees and editorial boards, 

including the IDRiM Journal and the Journal of Economics of Disasters and Climate 

Change. She has served as Lead Author and Review Editor on the Intergovernmental 

Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Special Report on Managing the Risks of Extreme 

Events (SREX) and the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, respectively. She is also a 

coordinating lead author on the chapter, Pathways to Systemic Risk Governance, of the 

United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) Global Assessment Report 

2020. 

32 33

Wolfgang Lutz 

Interim Deputy Director General for Science, 




Wolfgang Lutz is the Interim Deputy Director General for Science at the International 

Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the Founding Director of the 

Wittgenstein Centre for Demography and Global Human Capital, a cooperation between 

the University of Vienna (where he is Professor at the Department of Demography), 

IIASA (where he was for 25 years Director of the World Population Program), and the 

Austrian Academy of Sciences (where he is a Director of the Vienna Institute of 

Demography). 

He holds a PhD in Demography from the University of Pennsylvania, USA. Lutz has won 

prestigious awards including the Wittgenstein Prize, two European Research Council 

(ERC) Advanced Grants, the Mattei Dogan award of the International Union for the 

Scientific Study of Population (IUSSP), and the Mindel C. Sheps Award of the 

Population Association of America (PAA). He is a member of the Austrian Academy of 

Sciences, the German National Academy Leopoldina, the US National Academy of 

Sciences (NAS), the World Academy of Sciences (TWAS), the Finnish Society for 

Sciences and Letters, and the Academia Europea. He was also appointed by the UN 

Secretary-General to be one of the 15 members of the Independent Group of Scientists 

to produce the quadrennial Global Sustainable Development Report 2019. 

Raimund Mair 

Senior Water Resources Management Specialist, 

World Bank, Austria 


Mr. Raimund Mair joined the World Bank Group Water Global Practice in January 2019. 

In his position as Senior Water Resource Management Specialist he is involved in 

addressing aspects related to Water Security in countries of the Europe and Central 

Asia region, as well as leading the Danube Water Program, which is a technical 

assistance program for the water sector in South-East Europe. 

In his previous occupations at the European Commission and the International 

Commission for the Protection of the Danube River, he was working on the 

implementation of the EU Water Framework Directive and transboundary cooperation. 

Mr. Mair holds diplomas in Engineering from the University of Natural Resources and 

Life Sciences, Vienna and Water Policy from Cranfield University, United Kingdom. 

He has published over 280 scientific articles, including 24 in Science, Nature, and 

PNAS, and written or edited 27 books and special issues. 

34 35

Gerald Midgley 

Professor, Systems Thinking, Centre for Systems 

Studies, University of Hull, UK 

Corinna Milborn 

Director of Information, ProSiebenSat.1 PULS 4 

Media Group 


Gerald Midgley is Professor of Systems Thinking in the Centre for Systems Studies, 

Faculty of Business, Law and Politics, University of Hull, UK. He also holds Adjunct 

Professorships at Linnaeus University, Sweden; the University of Queensland, Australia; 

the University of Canterbury, New Zealand; Mälardalen University, Sweden; and Victoria 

University of Wellington, New Zealand. He has held research leadership roles in both 

academia and government, having spent eleven years as Director of the Centre for 

Systems Studies at Hull, and seven years as a Senior Science Leader in the Institute for 

Environmental Science and Research (ESR), New Zealand. 


Austrian political scientist and journalist Corinna Milborn is director of information at 

ProSieben.Sat1.PULS 4 and host of the PULS 4 News Talk “Pro & Contra”. She also 

conducts the political interviews in the station’s current affairs section. 

Corinna Milborn deals intensively with the topics of migration, integration, globalization, 

and human rights. She sees her job as a vocation and tries to move, change and 

improve things in a sustainable way. 

Gerald has written over 300 papers for academics and practitioners on systems 

thinking and community operational research, and has been involved in a wide variety 

of public sector, community development, health service, technology foresight and 

resource management projects. 

He was the 2013/14 President of the International Society for the Systems Sciences 

and has written or edited twelve books. These include: Systemic Intervention: 

Philosophy, Methodology, and Practice (Kluwer, 2000); Systems Thinking, Volumes I-IV 

(Sage, 2003); Community Operational Research: OR and Systems Thinking for 

Community Development (Kluwer, 2004); Forensic DNA Evidence on Trial: Science and 

Uncertainty in the Courtroom (Emergent, 2011); and the Routledge Handbook of 

Systems Thinking (Routledge, 2023, in press). 

36 37

Jan Marco 

Mueller 

Coordinator Science Diplomacy and Multilateral 

Relations, European Commission 


Following his PhD in Geography at the University of Marburg (Germany), Jan Marco 

Müller’s career included research management positions at the Helmholtz Centre for 

Environmental Research (UFZ) in Leipzig, the former JRC Institute for Environment and 

Sustainability in Ispra (Italy), and the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology near Oxford. 

After having served as Assistant to the Director-General of the European Commission’s 

Joint Research Centre (2009-2012), he managed the office of the Chief Scientific 

Adviser to the President of the European Commission (2012-2015) and then joined DG 

Research and Innovation to help setting up the Commission’s current Scientific Advice 

Mechanism. 2017-2020 he worked for the International Institute for Applied Systems 

Analysis (IIASA) near Vienna as Head of the Directorate Office and Acting Chief 

Operations Officer. 2020-2022 he served as first ever Science & Technology Advisor of 

the European External Action Service (EEAS). 

Since June 2022 he coordinates science diplomacy and multilateral relations at the 

European Commission’s DG Research and Innovation with the task of developing the 

European Science Diplomacy Agenda. 

Adil Najam 

Professor, Pardee School, Boston University, 

USA 


Adil Najam is Dean Emeritus at Boston University’s Pardee School of Global Studies. 

Earlier he served as Vice Chancellor of the Lahore University of Management Sciences 

in Pakistan. He also serves as senior advisor to the Jinnah Centre for Character and 

Leadership (Pakistan). He holds a PhD and two Masters from MIT, a Specialization in 

Negotiation from the Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, and completed 

engineering studies at the University of Engineering and Technology in Lahore, 

Pakistan. Professor Najam was a convening lead author for the Third and Fourth 

Assessments of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). In 2008 he 

was invited by the UN Secretary-General to serve on the UN Committee on 

Development (CDP). 

He is author and editor of nine books and more than 100 scholarly papers on global 

environmental policy, sustainable development, human development, and technology 

policy. He has served as a Trustee on the international board of WWF and The Asia 

Foundation, as Chair of the Luc Hoffmann Institute, and as Board Chair of the South 

Asia Network of Development and Environmental Economics (SANDEE). 

At IIASA he was a YSSP, later a Council member, and currently the Chair of the Friends 

of IIASA. 

Twitter: @JanMarcoScience 

38 39

Margit Noll 

CEO, European Partnership Driving Urban 

Transitions, Austrian Research Promotion Agency 

(FFG), Austria 


Margit Noll is CEO of the European Partnership Driving Urban Transitions, an 

intergovernmental research and innovation programme on sustainable urban 

development, financed by 28 European countries and the European Commission. The 

DUT partnership is the new programme of the Joint Programming Initiative Urban 

Europe which Margit is managing since 2014. 

She has more than 20 years of experience in research management and strategy 

development in organisations and networks. Among others, she was responsible for 

corporate strategy at the Austrian Institute of Technology from 2008 to 2016. In 2016 

she joined the Austrian Research Promotion Agency FFG, the Austrian funding agency 

for applied research and innovation. Margit has a PhD in physics and a MBA in general 

management. 

Martin Nowak 

Professor, Mathematics and Biology, Harvard 

University, USA 


Martin Nowak is Professor of Mathematics and of Biology at Harvard University. His 

research focuses on evolutionary dynamics which is the study of the fundamental 

principles that guide evolutionary change. 

Mutation and selection are the classic components of the evolutionary process. 

Mutation leads to novelty, and natural selection determines the success of new 

mutations. But Martin believes that in order to get organization and the emergence of 

ever more complicated structures, evolution needs a third component, and this is 

cooperation. 

Martin has long studied why cooperation exists and how it evolved—in other words, 

the reasons we do things that benefit someone else at cost to ourselves. Over the 

years, he has used mathematical descriptions to express the behavior of cells, viruses, 

insects, and humans, trying to understand what makes individuals join forces, work 

together, and help one another. Based on his mathematical models, as well as 

experimental games conducted with people who interact with each other, he has 

observed that nice guys can finish first, it is often better to reward than punish, and it 

pays to be generous, forgiving, and hopeful. Cooperation is a winning strategy in life. 

Martin also uses mathematical models and computer simulations to study the origin of 

life, the evolution of social behavior, the evolution of cancer, the dynamics of virus 

evolution, and the evolution of language. 

40 41

Helga Nowotny 

Former President and Founding Member, 

European Research Council (ERC) 

May-Britt Ohman 

Associate Professor, Centre for Multidisciplinary 

Studies on Racism, Uppsala University, Sweden 


Helga Nowotny is Professor emerita of Science and Technology Studies, ETH Zurich, 

founding member and former President of the European Research Council. 

She has held teaching and research positions at universities and research institutions in 

several countries in Europe and continues to be actively engaged in research and 

innovation policy at European and international level. Among other, she is currently 

member of the Board of Trustees of the Falling Walls Foundation, Berlin, Vice-President 

of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, a member of the Austrian Council for Research 

and Technology Development, Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Complexity 

Science Hub, Vienna and was Visiting Professor at Nanyang Technological University, 

Singapore. She received multiple honorary doctorates including from the University of 

Oxford and the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel. 

She has published widely in science and technology studies, STS, and on social time. 

Her latest publication “In AI we Trust. Power, Illusion and Control of Predictive 

Algorithms” has been published by Polity Press in 2021 followed by the Italian “Le 

macchine di Dio. Gli algoritmi predittivi e l’illusione del controllo”, and Spanish 

translation “La fe en la Inteligencia Artificial. Los algoritmos predictivos y el future de la 

humanidad”. Other recent publications are, The Cunning of Uncertainty (2015) and An 

Orderly Mess (2017). 

helga-nowotny.eu 


May-Britt Ohman is Associate Professor in Environmental History, PhD in History of 

Technology, Lule and Forest Sámi of Lule River/Julevädno, with Tornedalian heritage. 

Öhman leads the supradisciplinary research group “Dálkke: Indigenous Climate Change 

Studies”, funded within the Swedish National Research Program on Climate Change, 

based at the Centre for Multidisciplinary Studies on Racism, CEMFOR, Uppsala 

University, and is also guest associate professor at the unit of History, Luleå University 

of Technology, LTU. 

Ohman’s research and teaching focus is on large technical systems, hydropower, water 

resources, energy production/consumption, mines, environment, risk and safety, 

decolonisation and healing from colonial traumas, Feminist Technoscience and 

Indigenous Methodologies/Theories. Geographical focus is on Sábme, the Arctic and 

comparative studies with other Indigenous territories around the world. 

Dr. Ohman works through supradisciplinary collaborations to amongst other 

• discuss and promote Indigenous as well as Western environmentally friendly 

sociotechnical innovations. 

• analyze how technical design of energy systems relate to efforts of reduced 

consumption and emissions. 

• analyze consequences of climate change for Indigenous communities. 

• analyze CO 2 

emissions, climate change and environmentally negative impact from 

technical designs such as wind power, nuclear power, hydropower, solar cells. 

• analyze how technical designs claimed to be “green” affect Indigenous 

communities already under hard pressure from colonization. 

• analyze how more-than-humans, forests, lands and waters are affected by settler 

colonial industrial expansions. 

• contribute to the establishment of the field Indigenous Climate Change Studies. 

42 43

Amanda Palazzo 

Research Scholar, Biodiversity and Natural 



Martin Polaschek 

Federal Minister for Education, Science and 

Research of the Republic of Austria 



Amanda Palazzo has been a Research Scholar with the Integrated Biosphere Futures 

group since 2012. Her areas of research include the economic modelling of the waterenergy-land 

nexus, and she is one of the core developers of the partial-equilibrium 

model Global Biosphere Management Model (GLOBIOM). Her work has focused on the 

human demand for water resources, food security and agricultural development in the 

face of global change from both socioeconomic and climate change. 

She has also worked extensively in stakeholder engagement to link qualitative and 

quantitative scenarios with modelling tools. She was one of the leaders for the Zambezi 

river basin case-study for the Integrated Solutions for Water-Energy and Land (ISWEL) 

project funded by IIASA, GEF and UNIDO. Her work also includes assessing the 

impacts of investments in irrigation infrastructure and the impacts of adopting climatesmart 

agriculture strategies. 

Martin Polaschek was born in Bruck/Mur in 1965. After studying law, he was awarded 

the title of Professor for Austrian and European legal developments, contemporary 

legal history, and federalism research in 2000 and was promoted to associate university 

professor. From 2003 to 2019, he was Vice Rector for Studies and Teaching and from 

October 2019 to December 2021 Rector of the University of Graz. In addition, 

Polaschek was spokesman for the Austrian Vice Rectors for Teaching. Martin Polaschek 

conducted research with a focus on the areas of post-war justice, university law and 

municipal research. 

On December 6, 2021, Polaschek was sworn in as Minister of Education, Science and 

Research. 

Polaschek is married and a father of a family. 

Amanda Palazzo is the co-founder and current President of IIASA’s Women in Science 

Club (WISC). Sher co-coordinates the mentoring program as well as leads outreach 

and programming that amplifies the scientific contributions of women and provides an 

inclusive platform for members to work together to tackle the challenges facing women 

in science. 

44 45

Belinda Reyers 

Professor, Sustainability Science, University of 

Pretoria, South Africa 


Belinda Reyers is a Professor of Sustainability Science at the University of Pretoria, 

South Africa and a Research Affiliate of the Beijer Institute of Ecological Economics, 

Sweden. Prof. Reyers’ work bridges social-ecological systems science and sustainable 

development practice with a focus on the dynamics connecting ecosystems, resilience, 

and human development. Together with diverse collaborators, she has secured 

international grants to develop research and capacity for navigating the complex 

challenges of sustainable development. These experiences also directly test and shape 

her research. 

Between 2004 and 2015, she established and led the Biodiversity and Ecosystem 

Services Research Group at the CSIR, South Africa, where she worked as a Chief 

Scientist. In 2015 she took up a position as the Director of the Sida-funded Resilience 

and Development program at the Stockholm Resilience Centre in Sweden. She returned 

to South Africa in 2018 to take up the Research Chair in Sustainability Science at 

Future Africa, University of Pretoria. 

Her work has been widely published, cited and applied in both research and policy. She 

is active on the advisory boards of international scientific organisations and initiatives 

including Future Earth, IPBES and recently on the High-Level Advisory Panel for the UN 

Special Report on Human Security. 

Keywan Riahi 

Energy, Climate, and Environment Program 

Director, International Institute for Applied Systems 

Analysis (IIASA) 


Keywan Riahi is the Director of the Energy, Climate and Environment (ECE) Program at 

the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). In addition, he is a 

Visiting Professor of Energy Systems Analysis at the Graz University of Technology and 

serves as an External Faculty Member at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at the 

University of Amsterdam. 

In 2021, Mr. Riahi was ranked first by Reuters as the most influential climate scientist 

worldwide and he was also recognized by Clarivate as one of 23 researchers worldwide 

in the list of Highly Cited Researchers in three categories (Geosciences; Social 

Sciences; and Environment and Ecology). He was appointed to the European Scientific 

Advisory Board on Climate Change, providing scientific advice to underpin the climate 

policies in the EU, and was appointed by UN Secretary General Guterres to the 

10-Member Group to advise the UN on the Technology Facilitation Mechanism for the 

implementation of the Agenda 2030. In addition, has serves on the Scientific Advisory 

Board of the City of Vienna and the Austrian Green Finance Alliance. 

He received the prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Synergy Grant for the 

GENIE Project, focusing on new methods and technologies for carbon dioxide removal 

from the atmosphere. His key scientific achievements comprise the coordination and 

development of the so-called Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and the 

Shared Socioeconomic pathways (SSPs), which have facilitated the integrated analysis 

of climate change response options across the entire scientific community. He plays a 

leading role in the scientific community as a member of the Scientific Steering 

Committee of the Integrated Assessment Modeling Consortium (IAMC) and the 

International Committee on New Integrated Climate Change Assessment Scenarios 

(ICONICS), where he is responsible for the coordination and co-design of flagship 

research activities across the research community. 

46 47

Claudia Ringler 

Deputy Division Director, Environment and 

Production Technology Division, International 

Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), USA 


Claudia Ringler is Deputy Division Director at the International Food Policy Research 

Institute (IFPRI). A thought leader on water for food, she manages IFPRI’s Natural 

Resource Theme, co-leads the Institute’s water research program and is a co-manager 

of CGIAR NEXUS Gains Initiative. 

She published more than 120 journal articles in the areas of global water and food 

security, irrigation, gender-water, energy and climate change linkages and the 

synergies of climate change adaptation and mitigation. 

Claudia has a PhD in agricultural economics from University of Bonn and an MA in 

International Development Economics from Yale University. 

Elena 

Rovenskaya 

Advancing Systems Analysis Program Director, 




Elena Rovenskaya is the IIASA Advancing Systems Analysis (ASA) Program Director. 

Currently, the ASA Program includes 85+ scientists and aims to identify, develop, and 

deploy new systems-analytical methods, tools, and data that address the most pressing 

global sustainability challenges with greater agility, and help find solutions to those 

challenges that are both realistic and appropriate. 

Elena Rovenskaya studied at the Faculty of Physics (specialist degree) and then at the 

Faculty of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics (PhD degree), both at the 

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia. In her PhD dissertation, Dr. Rovenskaya 

developed a new numerical method for solving a broad class of non-convex 

optimization problems. 

Elena Rovenskaya’s current scientific interests lie in the fields of optimization, decision 

science, and mathematical modeling of complex socio-environmental systems. She is 

working with a broad set of modelling approaches including system dynamics, agentbased 

modelling, optimal control and optimization under uncertainty. 

48 49

Ursula Scharler 

Professor, University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), 

South Africa 


Prof. Ursula Scharler is currently a full professor in the School of Life Sciences of the 

University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa. She works extensively on marine 

and estuarine ecosystems, and her expertise encompasses systems analysis in 

ecosystems and socio-economic systems. With a strong background in ecology, her 

work reaches beyond natural ecosystems to inform research activities in urban, 

economic, and digital platform systems. At UKZN, she mentors postgraduate students 

in ecology and systems analysis, and teaches across different topics at under- and 

postgraduate level. 

Since 2014 she has been a member of the South African NMO to IIASA and its chair 

from 2017 to 2022. Most recently, Prof. Scharler has contributed to the COVID-19 

Country Response Report for the South African National Government, and to the Blue 

Climate Initiative of the Tetiaroa Society on Ocean Health and Human Wellbeing. 

Other academic citizenship activities include serving as member of national and 

international conference organising committees, and the organisation of national and 

international workshops on marine and estuarine ecosystems and systems analysis. 

Prof. Scharler serves on the editorial board of several peer reviewed international 

journals. 

Thomas Schinko 

Equity and Justice Research Group Leader, 

Population and Just Societies Program, 




Thomas Schinko joined the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) 

as a research scholar in 2014. Currently, he is Research Group Leader of the Equity and 

Justice (EQU) Research Group within the Population and Just Societies (POPJUS) 

Program at IIASA. He studied economics and environmental system sciences at the 

University of Graz, Austria and Uppsala University, Sweden. 

Dr. Schinko’s main research interests fall into the areas of comprehensive climate risk 

management and just transitions. He focuses on the assessment of socio-economic 

impacts of climate related risks and their distributional effects, the identification of just 

and inclusive climate risk management strategies, the understanding of risks and risk 

perceptions connected with climate change mitigation and adaptation options, and the 

ethical and politico-economic aspects in the context of a Just Transition towards a 

sustainable future. 

His areas of expertise include quantitative economic modelling as well as qualitative 

social science methods with a particular focus on participatory processes. 

50 51

Linda See 

Senior Research Scholar, Advancing Systems 

Analysis Program, International Institute for 



Linda See is a Senior Research Scholar in the Novel Data Ecosystems for Sustainability 

Research Group in the Advancing Systems Analysis Program at the International 

Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA). 

She has a PhD in spatial applications of fuzzy logic from the School of Geography, 

University of Leeds, where she taught for more than a decade as a senior lecturer in 

Computational Geography and GIS. She has an MSc and BSc in physical geography and 

environmental management from McMaster University and the University of Toronto. In 

between her MSc and PhD, she spent one year working at the Max Planck Institute for 

Atmospheric Sciences near Göttingen, Germany, followed by four years at the Food and 

Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in Rome, Italy, on 

agrometeorology and early warning for food security. 

Her current area of research is the exploration of synergies between citizen science, 

crowdsourcing, and Earth Observation. She works with the Geo-Wiki team on the 

crowdsourcing of land cover, the quality assurance of crowdsourced data, and 

community engagement. She is an editor of the journal Environment and Planning B: 

Urban Analytics and City Science. 

Till Spranger 

Senior Advisor, Federal Ministry for the 

Environment, Nature Conservation, 

Nuclear Safety and Consumer Protection, 

Germany 


Till Spranger works in the Ministry´s division on air pollution control and ambient air 

quality. 

He has worked in the framework of the UNECE Air Convention for 25 years; presently 

he chairs the Convention´s policy and negotiation body (Working Group on Strategies 

and Review), He has been involved in negotiation and implementation of air pollution 

related regulations on national, EU, UNECE and global levels, including the EU Directive 

on national emission reduction commitments, amendments to UNECE Air Convention 

Protocols, and UNEA resolutions on air quality. In addition, he has been working on 

establishing nitrogen management as a national and global policy field. 

He is a policymaker with an international focus and a science background, including on 

air pollutant emissions, transport, deposition, and effects; nitrogen management; and 

synergies of air pollution management inter alia with energy/climate and agriculture 

policies. Throughout his career, he has dealt with science-policy interaction from 

various perspectives. 

Till Spranger holds a Ph.D. in ecosystem science from Kiel University (Germany) and a 

M.Sc. Environmental Science from Indiana University, Bloomington, IN (USA). 

52 53

Sigrid Stagl 

Professor, Institute for Ecological Economics & 

Competence Centre for Sustainability 

Transformation and Responsibility, Vienna 

University of Economics, Austria 


Sigrid is an economist who works in the interdisciplinary field of Ecological Economics. 

When starting from a pre-analytic vision of an economy that is embedded in society 

and the biophysical sphere, analysing economic activities requires interdisciplinary 

teams. 

Currently her work focuses on integrated assessment of sustainable energy futures and 

innovation in food systems. At WU she (co-)founded the Institute for Ecological 

Economics, the Research Institute Economics of Inequality and the MSc program Socio- 

Ecological Economics and Policy. 

Gerhard Svolba 

Data Scientist, Analytic Solution Architect, SAS 

Institute, Austria 


Dr. Gerhard Svolba is an analytic solutions architect and data scientist at SAS Institute 

Inc. in Austria. He is involved in numerous analytic and data science projects in 

different business and research domains like demand forecasting, analytical CRM, risk 

modeling, fraud prediction, and production quality. His project experience ranges from 

business and technical conceptual considerations to data preparation and analytic 

modeling across industries. 

He is the author of the SAS Press books Data Preparation for Analytics Using SAS®, 

Data Quality for Analytics Using SAS® and “Applying Data Science: Business Case 

Studies Using SAS”. 

As a part-time lecturer he teaches data science methods at the University of Vienna 

and the Medical University of Vienna as well as on business schools. 

54 55

Maria Uhle 

Program Director for International Activities, 

Directorate for Geosciences, National Science 

Foundation, USA 


Dr. Maria Uhle currently serves as the Program Director for International Activities in 

the Directorate for Geosciences at the National Science Foundation, where she 

develops mechanisms and agreements to foster international research collaboration. 

She is Co-Chair of the Belmont Forum, Co-Chair of the Governing Board of Future Earth 

and Chair of the Executive Council of the IAI. She works with other US federal agencies 

through the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) where she is the National 

Science Foundation’s Principal and co-Chair of the International Activities, Interagency 

Working Group. Prior to NSF, she served as an International Affairs Officer in the Office 

of International and Academic Affairs (OIAA) at the National Institute of Standards and 

Technology (NIST), working in the Middle East, North Africa and South Asia. 

At the National Academy of Sciences, she served as Program Director for the Polar 

Research Board and the Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate. Prior to NAS, she 

served on the faculty at the University of Tennessee in the Department of Earth and 

Planetary Sciences. Her research focused on the fate of organic matter and 

contaminants in atmospheric, surface water and soil environments from urban areas 

and the polar deserts of Antarctica. 

Eeva Vilkkumaa 

Assistant professor, Aalto University School of 

Business, Finland 


Dr. Eeva Vilkkumaa is an Assistant Professor of Management Science at the 

Department of Information and Service Management at Aalto University School of 

Business. She received her Doctor of Science (Tech.) degree in 2014 at the Department 

of Mathematics and Systems Analysis at Aalto University School of Science. 

Her research interests include the development of novel methods to support decisionmaking 

and resource allocation under uncertainty. Recent application areas include the 

cost-effective allocation of healthcare resources and scenario-based strategy 

development. The methods developed by Vilkkumaa have been published in leading 

international journals, such as Operations Research, European Journal of Operational 

Research, and Technological Forecasting and Social Change. 

She has 15 years of experience in lecturing courses at Helsinki University of Technology 

and Aalto University on various topics including decision analysis, investment science, 

business analytics, data science, optimization, statistics, and behavioral decisionmaking. 

She also works as a lecturer in various Aalto Executive Education programs, 

including “Strategic Foresight in Business Management” and “Analytics and Data 

Strategies”. Vilkkumaa is a partner and consultant in two companies specializing in the 

use of mathematical modeling for decision support: Decision&Action and Swanlake 

Strategy. 

56 57

Fabian Wagner 

Dean for Capacity Development and Academic 

Training; Senior Research Scholar, Energy, Climate 

and Environment Program, International Institute 

for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) 

Peter T. Warren, 

CBE 

Secretary of IIASA Charter Signing Ceremony and 

of the First IIASA Council Meeting 


Fabian Wagner is the Dean for Capacity Development and Academic Training (CDAT) at 

IIASA, and a senior research scholar in the Energy, Climate, and Environment (ECE) 

Program. In addition to being associate faculty both at the Complexity Science Hub and 

the Technical University in Vienna, he is also Editor-in-Chief of the journal Mitigation 

and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change (Springer Nature). Wagner is experienced 

in science policy, strategic planning, and research evaluation, and serves in a variety of 

advisory roles with national and international organizations. 

Between the years of 2014 and 2016, Wagner was the Gerhard R. Andlinger ‘52 

Professor for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University’s Andlinger Center for 

Energy and the Environment, and the Princeton School of Public and International 

Affairs. Before joining IIASA in 2004, he was a researcher with the Intergovernmental 

Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) located at the Institute for Global Environmental 

Strategies (IGES) in Hayama, Japan. Prior to that, he was a postdoc with the 

International Energy Analysis Group at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 

(LBNL, USA). 

Wagner received both a PhD (theoretical physics) and two master’s degrees 

(mathematics; history and philosophy of science) from Cambridge University, UK. In 

1998, he won the J.T. Knight’s Prize in mathematics from Cambridge University. 


Peter Warren was born in Brighton (1937); educated at Whitgift School, Croydon 

(1947-56) and Queens’ College, Cambridge (1956-62) reading Natural Sciences, 

graduating in Geology, and obtaining a Ph.D. (1962) for research in Scotland. 

In 1962 he joined the British Geological Survey (BGS), making geological maps in 

North Wales and advising on geological aspects of developments such as the Wylfa 

Nuclear Power Station. 

In 1972 Dr. Warren was seconded to the Cabinet Office to work for the Chief Scientific 

Adviser and as private secretary to Lord Zuckerman on numerous science policy 

matters, advising PMs Heath, Wilson and Callaghan. 

On return to BGS’s parent body, NERC, Dr. Warren became its first Safety Adviser, 

setting up policy and management frameworks for all its 50+ research institutes. 

In 1977, Peter Warren began service with the Royal Society, first as Deputy with 

particular responsibility for science advice to Government and for international scientific 

relations, and then as Secretary (CEO) ultimately responsible for a turnover of some 

£28m and staff of 120. 

On retirement (1997) Dr. Warren became Director, World Humanity Action Trust 

(WHAT), a charity concerned with the governance implications of resolving global 

environmental issues. He became a Trustee in 2001. 

Dr. Warren was Master of the Worshipful Company of Educators for 2007-2008. 

58 59

Barbara 

Willaarts 

Research Scholar, Biodiversity and Natural 



Wilfried 

Winiwarter 

Senior Research Scholar, Energy, Climate, and 

Environment Program, International Institute for 



Barbara Willaarts is an environmental scientist working as a research scholar and 

project manager in the IIASA Water Security Research Group. She has over 16 years of 

professional experience, and her research covers a broad range of topics relevant to 

water and food governance and sustainability transitions. Her research also benefits 

from an international reach through geographical settings ranging from Europe to Latin 

America, and more recently Africa and Asia. Barbara Willaarts’ work is driven by two 

main principles: one is collaborative and interdisciplinary research to explore complex 

problems and find joint and sustainable solutions, the other is impact-oriented research 

in and beyond academia to enhance the social and policy relevance of science. 

In addition to her work as a researcher she is also an independent consultant, and 

benefits from a broad experience working with different regional and international 

organizations. Much of this work is geared towards making accessible scientific 

knowledge to all relevant stakeholders, including the policymakers to support informed 

decision-making. 

Twitter: @bwillaarts 


Wilfried Winiwarter, originally trained as a chemical engineer and working as an 

atmospheric scientist, joined IIASA in 2003. His interest in systems analysis derives 

from the overarching challenges of climate research. Working for the IIASA Air Quality 

and Greenhouse Gases (AIR) program, he has acquired expertise in the biogeochemical 

cycle of nitrogen, especially on its anthropogenic impacts. That includes describing 

methods to minimize the release of ammonia or nitrous oxide into the environment, 

processes that often are connected with agricultural activities. 

Prof. Winiwarter started his academic career at Vienna University of Technology, where 

he obtained a PhD degree and a postdoctoral qualification for academic teaching 

(‘’Habilitation’’). Partly in parallel with his IIASA affiliation, he was a senior scientist at 

the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), he held a two-year term as Professor for 

Systems Sciences at the University of Graz, and since October 2017, he has also been 

Professor of Environmental Chemistry at the Institute of Environmental Engineering, 

University of Zielona Gora, Poland. 

In 2019, he received an International Fellowship of the President of the Chinese 

Academy of Sciences (PIFI) that allows him to spend several weeks both in 2019 and 

2020 to work with experts of the Center for Agricultural Resources Research of the CAS 

in Shijiazhuang, China, on the establishment of ammonia emission limits in the North 

China Plain. 

60 61

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