Fluid Interdisciplinarities
Speakers & Contributors
Below you can find short biographies of our speakers and contributors.
Anaëlle Ghesquière
She is a PhD student in sociology at INRAE Montpellier (UMR G-EAU). Trained in socio-anthropology and environmental humanities, she worked during my Master's research on attachments to places in the context of nature conservation in the Comoros, after spending three years in South America, where she taught french and worked as a translator. Her doctoral research, part of a interdisciplinary project, explores how citizens engage in caring for rivers through participatory restoration projects. She studies the formation of communities of care around waterways and the ways in which local knowledge, collective monitoring, and creative methods can nurture more sensitive, democratic relationships with river ecosystems.
Beate Witzel
Beate Witzel is a biologist specializing in ecology. At the Stadtmuseum Berlin, she serves as thematic curator for urban ecology and head of the geological collection. A central focus of her work lies in designing exhibitions, guided tours, and workshops that make natural science topics accessible to a broad public.
Bipolar Agency
Bipolar Agency is an artistic and cultural agency that uses storytelling and imagination in experiential and context-specific approaches to support communities in the context of ecological transition. It uses creativity to invent new narratives, open up political imaginations and experiment with sensitive consultation methodologies, drawing on research to evaluate and consolidate its approaches. Its projects bring together residents, communities and scientists around ecological issues (water, coastline, risks, renaturation). Convinced of the power of territorial fictions, Bipolar advocates for a relational ecology based on attachment, listening and care for the environment.
Christelle Gramaglia
Christelle Gramaglia is a Research Director in Sociology at INRAE Montpellier. After completing a PhD on lawsuits related to river pollution cases in France, she did a postdoctoral fellowship at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, focusing on controversies surrounding the development of aquatic ecotoxicology (for water quality monitoring). Her current research aims to encourage citizen involvement in river restoration projects. She also teaches the sociology of science and technology at the University of Montpellier.
Desirée Hetzel
Desirée Hetzel’s ethnographic research focuses on how people interact with water in the form of rivers and lakes, as well as water infrastructure, and how these relationships are changing due to climate change. As water sources dry up and water becomes scarcer, new forms of communication are required. In her work, she combines scientific perspectives, everyday knowledge and artistic approaches. Alongside water authorities, citizens and artists, she explores new ways of collaborating. She is currently conducting this research at the TUM Public Science Lab (www.publicscienceslab.org). You can find more information about her work with Pauline Münch at www.anthroposcenes.de, as well as in a joint podcast 'Touching Water' with Márk Somogyvári, in which they speak with various water experts.
Heindriken Dahlmann
Heindriken Dahlmann is a doctoral researcher at the IRI THESys (HU Berlin) and a guest researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Within her PhD, Heindriken tries to disentangle how water scarcities, agricultural production, and "virtual" water — the water used to produce goods — are connected, to better understand how problems in one region of the world can lead to socio-ecological impacts elsewhere. Her PhD project is funded by the Heinrich-Böll Foundation.
Irina Demina
Irina Demina is a choreographer and artistic researcher. She studied philology and earned a master's degree in choreography at the Hochschulübergreifendes Zentrum Tanz Berlin (HZT). Since 2012, she has been developing international choreographic projects, collaborating with renowned artists, and her work has been acknowledged with distinctions such as the Pina Bausch Fellowship and an award at the competition "The Best German Dance Solo". Her practice spans performances, teaching, workshops, and dynamic transdisciplinary formats.
Jean Philippe Venot
Jean Philippe Venot is researcher with the French public research institute for sustainable development (IRD). In his research, he attempts to decrypt why water and irrigation development projects in the global South unfold the way they do and investigates how and to what extent reflexive transdisciplinary knowledge making practices can influence these trajectories.
Kunstkollektiv FLUNST
Kunstkollektiv FLUNST is an artist collective in the Altes Land region, Northern Germany. Founded in January 2024, the group creates spaces where people can come together to engage with art, creativity and water bodies. Their work focuses especially on the rivers that cross the region of Altes Land - the Elbe, Este und Lühe.
Laura Betancur Alarcón
Laura Betancur Alarcón is a doctoral researcher in ‘Water security for whom? Social and material perspectives on inequality around multipurpose reservoirs in Colombia’. Her research explores hydrosocial relations within the complex interplay of climate extremes, biodiversity loss, energy infrastructures, and armed violence. She integrates insights from human geography, sustainability science and environmental anthropology in her ethnographic and transdisciplinary research. She holds a Master’s degree in Environmental Studies and Sustainability Science from Lund University, Sweden. Over nine years in the environmental sector, she has contributed as a research assistant, writer, lecturer, and journalist across diverse organisations, including academic institutions, media outlets, and international NGOs.
Márk Somogyvári
Márk Somogyvári is a postdoctoral researcher at the Humboldt University of Berlin. Márk holds a Master’s degree in geophysics from the Eötvös Loránd University of Budapest and a doctoral degree in earth sciences from ETH Zürich, which he obtained in 2017. After his doctoral studies, Márk was a researcher of the Geo.X Young Academy in the numerical mathematics group at University of Potsdam, then he worked as a research assistant in the hydrogeology group of TU Berlin. Márk has experience in applied mathematics and in data science with a special interest in interdisciplinary problems and hydrology. His past works involved the development of tomographic inversion methods for geothermal applications, the characterization of fracture networks in hard rock reservoirs and the application of stochastic numerical methods for aquifer characterization. His current work focuses on making complex models more accessible for wider audiences, with the help of machine learning and statistical tools, and different visualization methods.
Matthias Zarama Giedion
Matthias Zarama Giedion studied Cultural History & Theory and Mathematics and is now pursuing a Master’s in Integrated Natural Resource Management. He is interested in how memory, history, and the ways people relate to their environments intertwine. At IRI THESys, he works with Prof. Dr. Tobias Krüger, contributing to interdisciplinary research on socio-environmental systems.
Pauline Münch
Pauline Münch is a science communicator who works with practice-based and transdisciplinary methods of knowledge exchange. At the ZfK, she contributes to public relations, communication strategies, and the development of innovative knowledge exchange formats. She also holds a position at the Integrative Research Institute for Transformations of Human-Environment Systems (IRI THESys), where she is involved in a range of projects, including the DFG-funded initiative "Past-proofing Infrastructure Futures", as well as inter and transdisciplinary collaborations that connect art and science around the topic of water.
Regina Hügli
Regina Hügli (*1975) is a Swiss photographer, multidisciplinary artist and water activist based in Vienna, Austria. Water is at the center of her work – research projects led her to various European source regions, rivers and wetland ecosystems. Her work fundamentally reflects on the relationship with water, both in a documentary and investigative manner, as well as with a poetic and multisensory approach. She was awarded the Austrian Neptun State Prize for Water in Art in 2023. As founder and chairwoman of the association One Body of Water she organizes interdisciplinary and participatory events at the intersection of art, science and the public. One Body of Water collaborates with institutions and organizations internationally and is member of the Global Network of Water Museums. www.reginahuegli.com www.onebodyofwater.net
Roger Anis
Roger Anis is an Egyptian documentary photographer and visual researcher. He holds a master's degree from the Royal Academy of Arts in the Netherlands, where he focused on water and rivers. A Fine Arts graduate (2008), he began his career in 2010, working with global news outlets such as AP, GettyImages, and The New York Times. His work, exhibited internationally, focuses on underreported social and environmental issues. Roger is also the co-founder of the EverydayNile Initiative, blending photography and filmmaking to expand his visual storytelling across the Nile Basin.
Rossella Alba
Rossella Alba researches the relationships between society and both fresh and salty waters, with a focus on governance and infrastructure. She develops and engages in innovative research methods for inter- and transdisciplinary collaboration, aiming to foster transformations toward (water) justice. She holds a PhD in Human Geography (Trier University) and, over the past five years, has worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Geography Department and IRI THESys at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.
Salma Abusamra
Salma Abusamra is a Sudanese filmmaker and founder of Ratayen Media Production. Her work explores oral cultures and human connections to the Nile. She contributed to the AquaMuse Project, designing stories about the Blue Nile and its communities, and currently serves as the Artistic Director of the Khartoum Arab Film Festival.
Seila Fernández Arconada
Seila Fernández Arconada is a multidisciplinary artist-researcher focusing on contemporary socio ecological uncertainties influenced by climatic shifts, societal disputes and extractive actions towards Nature, specially in bodies of water. With her (eco)socially engaged praxis, she nurtures transdisciplinarity, complex system thinking and ecosocial justice merged with trauma informed approaches to offer carefully created "in between spaces" for situated collaborations. Seila has exhibited internationally as well as leading numerous projects and interventions. Her collaboration with bodies of water has taken her to rivers such Amazon River, Meder, Douro, etc. Most recently Dnipro River. More information: www.seilafernandezarconada.net
Sumit Vij
Sumit Vij is an Assistant Professor at the Sociology of Development and Change Group, Wageningen University & Research. His research focuses on questions of power and politics within the themes of transboundary waters and (peri)urban infrastructure in South Asia, in the times of changing climate and uncertainty.
Tobias Krüger
Tobias Krüger is Director of IRI THESys and Professor of Hydrology and Society at Humboldt-Universität´s Geography Department. His interdisciplinary research is at the intersection of hydrology and critical social science. Recent projects tackle the changing water cycle in the Berlin-Brandenburg region, inequalities around hydropower dams in the Magdalena and Sinú basins in Colombia and decision-support modelling for water governance in North-East India. All of his projects involve some level of public or stakeholder participation, outreach or connection with art-based formats.
Timothy Moss
Timothy Moss is a Senior Researcher at the Integrative Research Institute on Transformations of Human-Environment Systems (IRI THESys) at the Humboldt University of Berlin and Honorary Professor at the Leibniz University Hannover. For 30 years he has been researching urban energy and water systems from historical and social science perspectives. Tim's research is distinctive for connecting historical studies of infrastructure with contemporary debates on sociotechnical and urban transitions.
Dr. Friederike Landau-Donnelly
Dr. Friederike Landau-Donnelly (*1989, she/they) is an intersectional political theorist, urban sociologist and cultural geographer. She is a visiting professor for Social and Cultural Geography at Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany. She is current working on a monograph on conflictual museums in Canada and India. Friederike writes on artistic and affective activism, spatial theory, art in public space (especially murals) and contested cultural policy. Friederike has co-edited Handbuch Kulturpolitik (Handbook of Cultural Policy, Springer, 2024), Konfliktuelle Kulturpolitik (Conflictual Cultural Policy, Springer, 2023), [Un]Grounding – Post-Foundational Geographies (transcript, 2021). Friederike produces zines and publishes poetry as #PoeticAcademic: https://friederikelandau.com/poeticacademic/