Email: portico-services@ucl.ac.uk
Help Desk: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/ras/portico/helpdesk
- Associate Professor
- Bartlett School Env, Energy & Resources
- Faculty of the Built Environment
I have been Strategy Thread Chair for the International Conference of the System Dynamics Society since 2015 and was a jury member for the Gert von Kortzfleisch Prize from 2013 to 2020. I contributed to governance and organizational activities as a current member of the System Dynamics Society's Program Oversight Committee and former member of the Policy Council, repeat volunteer coordinator at the International Conference of the System Dynamics Society, and a workshop organizer in the US, Germany, the UK, China, Kenya and France.


With an interest in counterintuitive and innovative solutions for important problems, I research topics related to housing, system dynamics modelling, the management of change, and decision making. Multiple subject areas and universities enhanced my interest in discerning interdisciplinary approaches to address problems. In interdisciplinary research I use participative methods and my main research methods are system dynamics modelling, qualitative and case study research. I have a strong interest in processes of change, interactions among people and the construction of an environment sustainable in every sense, allowing for resilient development.
In the past years, I have completed work on Integrated Decision-Making about Housing, Energy and Wellbeing (HEW), on Housing in Nairobi's Informal Settlements (HINIS), on a Web-Integrated Interactive Simulation Environment (HEW-WISE), on the Total Performance of Low-Carbon Buildings in China and the UK (TOP) and an exciting project with the UK Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy on developing a systems perspective of home owner decision-making about energy efficiency in the wider policy and industrial context.
Currently, I am working on several research grants: I lead the work package on City Engagement in the Complex Urban Systems for Sustainability and Health (CUSSH) project. This work package includes collaborators across four continents. In addition, as Co-Investigator I lead on participatory system dynamics work in the Community Water Management for a Liveable London (CAMELLIA) project and am eager to start working on the project Virtual Decision Rooms for Water Neutral Urban Planning (VENTURA) project soon. I am also a Co-Investigator on a prestigious EPSRC Platform Grant on Built Environment Systems Thinking that aims at developing a systems perspective across the Bartlett School for Environment, Energy & Resources.
My research is participatory, and typically inter- or transdisciplinary, involving diverse stakeholder groups to better understand the wide ranging additional impacts that policies have on health, society and the environment. Here I aim at taking into account physical, social, economic and environmental wellbeing while emphasising co-benefits and minimising trade-offs.
I have taught a variety of different modules over the last decade. Currently I teach Methods of Environmental Analysis as well as Systems Thinking and System Dynamics.
PhD supervision:
Currently I supervise five PhD students as primary and one as secondary supervisor.
I welcome PhD applications on topics of
- attention, change or decision-making in organisations such as government departments, NGOs and the built environment industry;
- (participatory) system dynamics modelling and qualitative research.
01-SEP-2015 – 30-SEP-2019 | Lecturer in System Dynamics | UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering | UCL, United Kingdom |
01-OCT-2014 – 31-AUG-2015 | Senior Research Associate | UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering | University College London, United Kingdom |
01-APR-2011 – 31-AUG-2015 | Junior Professor for Organization Studies | School of Economic Disciplines | University of Siegen, Germany |
01-SEP-2008 – 31-JAN-2011 | Research and Teaching Assistant | Business School | University of Mannheim, Germany |
2016 | ATQ03 - Recognised by the HEA as a Fellow | Higher Education Academy | |
2011 | Doctor | University of Mannheim | |
2005 | Master of Science | London School of Economics and Political Science | |
2004 | Bachelor of Arts | Universitat Bayreuth |