Highlights of the Winter Research Forum 2024
19.02.2024
On Thursday, 8 February 2024, the Rachel Carson Center (RCC) celebrated the end of the academic term with the biannual Research Forum. Designed to showcase the innovative research being conducted across the different sections of the RCC, our community gathered at the Historisches Kolleg to introduce and celebrate that research.
To kick things off, RCC Director Christof Mauch and Director of Academic Programs Katherine Arnold welcomed guests to the festivities. In the first presentation, we heard about the ongoing research of Co-director Sonja Dümpelmann and the two postdocs on her team, Pooja Nayak and Spencer Adams. Then, Martin Saxer and his research group presented their project “Foraging at the Edge of Capitalism,” including videos explaining the foraging practices in the different locales of the project. The Landhaus fellows followed with a video about how their individual research relates to their experience on the farm at the Landhaus, and the Editorial and Communications team closed the first part of the day by giving us a sneak peek of the forthcoming issue of Springs as well as a forthcoming exhibition on the RCC’s Environment and Society Portal.
After the mid-afternoon coffee break, we heard presentations from six visiting scholars from the US, Italy, Australia, Germany, and Brazil and six more from PhD students in both our ProEnviron and IDK programs. Coordinator of the Environmental Studies Certificate Program Susanne Unger introduced three students from the Environmental Studies Certificate Program who presented their final projects. More information on the students’ final projects can be found on the ESCP’s website.
The February 2024 Research Forum drew to an end with the Awards Ceremony. Starting with the famous Cowbell Prize, we moved to congratulating Jonas Stuck and Jonatan Palmblad for completing their PhD programs and receiving the ProEnviron certificate. Members of the Selbach-Umwelt Stiftung then awarded several prizes to outstanding BA, MA, and PhD dissertations that deal with complex, interdisciplinary topics of sustainability, intended to illustrate and promote Munich’s expertise in sustainability research.
The evening was rounded out with dinner and drinks in the Historisches Kolleg.
We would like to thank Lena Schlegel for the visual documentation of the event. The copyright for the images above lies with her.