Carla Bube Carla Bube is currently completing her master's degree in “Geography of Global Change” at the University of Freiburg. Her master's thesis deals with touristic place constructions on the Great Barrier Reef, while her bachelor's degree focused on topics in development geography. In addition to her studies, she works at the Africa Centre for Transregional Research in Freiburg. She was active at GeoDACH e.V. for many years, led the organization of the Young Geography Congress 2025 in Leipzig, and has been a member of the board of the German Association for Applied Geography since September 2025.

Dana Graulich has been working as a research associate at the Institute of Geography and Geocommunication at Heidelberg University of Education since 2019. After completing her studies, she worked as a research trainee in museum education at the Natural History Museum in Karlsruhe. As part of her current project, a mobile learning app is being developed to raise adolescents’ awareness of the protection and restoration of ecosystems on site. In her doctoral research, she focuses on the potential of mobile location-based learning in climate education. In addition, she is contact person for the “Climate Change Education” working group within the “Early-Career Researchers” of HGD (the Academic Association for Geography Education) and was part of the organizing team for the HGD conference for Early-Career Researchers in Heidelberg 2023.

Prof. Dr. Sina Hardaker has been Professor of Anthropogeography at Munich University of Applied Sciences since September 2025. After studying at the Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences and Liverpool John Moores University, she obtained her doctorate in 2015 from the University of Würzburg on the internationalisation of the Chinese food retail sector. Her current research focuses on the economic, social and spatial implications of digitalisation, in particular the impact of digital platforms on urban transformation processes. She is currently leading a DFG-funded project on the platformisation of retail and is involved in international collaborations on topics such as digital free trade zones.

Dr. Felix Henselowsky studied Geography, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in 2012 and completing a master's degree in Quaternary Research and Geoarchaeology in 2014, both at the University of Cologne. He then began his doctoral thesis as part of the DFG Collaborative Research Center 806 “Our Way to Europe,” which was successfully completed in 2019 with the title “Early Late Pleistocene environments in Northeast Africa and their relevance for Anatomically Modern Human dispersal.” From 2014 to 2017, he was employed at the Department of Geography at the University of Cologne and moved to the Department of Geography at the University of Heidelberg (working group “Geomorphology and Soil Geography”) in 2018. Since 2021, he has been a permanent research assistant at the Department of Geography at the University of Mainz. The thematic focus of his research lies in the field of geoarchaeology, particularly in arid regions of the world, e.g., in Egypt and Namibia, and anthropogeomorphology, e.g., using the example of relief changes caused by lignite mining in the Rhineland. Since the beginning of 2024, he has been an assessor on the board of the VGDH (Association for Geography at German-speaking Universities and Research Institutions).

Dr. Mareike Pampus is a researcher and lecturer in Human Geography at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, where she also serves as scientific coordinator at the Centre for Just Transition and Sustainability. Her current research explores diverse understandings of nature and landscape in the restoration of former lignite mining areas in the Central German Mining District. Building on ethnographic and more-than-human approaches, her research explores how restoration and recultivation practices are negotiated in post-industrial landscapes. Previously, she worked at the Climate Justice Research Centre at the University of Technology Sydney on renewable energy transitions in East Germany. She completed her PhD at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, where she researched port-city heritage and Indian Ocean mobilities. She is the author of Connected Heritages: The Inner Life of Penang in the Indian Ocean World (Palgrave, 2025).

Verena Pohl studiert seit 2022 im Bachelor Geographie mit Politikwissenschaft im Nebenfach an der Julius-Maximilians Universität Würzburg. Ihr Schwerpunkt ist die Physische Geographie, worin sie aktuell auch ihre Bachelorarbeit zur Klimatischen Wasserbilanz von Deutschland schreibt. Neben dem Studium arbeitet sie als Werkstudentin bei Recurrent Energy Germany GmbH, wo sie im Bereich der Projektentwicklung von Solarparks und Batteriespeicher tätig ist. Durch ihr jahrelanges Engagement in der Fachschaftsinitiative Geographie an der Uni kam sie über die Bundesfachachaftentagungen zu GeoDACH e.V. (Vertretung deutschsprachiger Geographiestudierender aus Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz), dem Veranstalter der Tagungen. Seit Januar 2025 ist sie als Vorstandsmitglied aktiv im Verein und für das Jahr 2026 zur Vorstandsvorsitzenden gewählt. Zudem war sie im Orgateam des Jungen Kongress der Geographie 2025 in Leipzig, der von GeoDACH e.V. veranstaltet wurde.

Dr. Thomas Neise studied human geography, business administration and economics at the University of Potsdam and Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. From 2014 to 2019, he was a research assistant at the University of Cologne, where he completed his dissertation on corporate adaptation strategies to flooding in Indonesian coastal cities in 2018. Since March 2020, he has been employed as a research assistant at Osnabrück University. From October 2023 to February 2025, he hold the chairs of Economic and Social Geography and Human Geography at the University of Heidelberg. From 2020 to 2023, he was managing editor of Standorte – Zeitschrift für angewandte Geographie published by the DVAG. His research focuses on corporate adaptation strategies to extreme weather events and climate change, as well as risks in global production networks. He also conducts research on resilience strategies in the restaurant and bar, cruise and medical technology industries, and on the methodological integration of behavioural economics into economic geography. His research focuses on Germany, East Asia and Southeast Asia.

Dr. Sebastian Rauch is currently the Head of the MOVE (Mobility and Traffic Safety) research group at the Institute for Empirical Sociology (IfeS) at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg. He studied Geography at the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena and earned his PhD in Social Geography at the Julius-Maximilian-University of Würzburg in 2020 with a dissertation on migration and social networks. He subsequently spent three years as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Würzburg. During this time, his research focused on mobility studies, medical geography and methods in human geography. Dr. Rauch also worked in the field of urban development and transportation planning in Munich, where he was particularly involved in innovation projects related to new mobility concepts. Since October 2024, he is leading the MOVE research group at IfeS, which focuses on mobility surveys, mobility management, traffic safety, and accessibility and service provision analyses.

Ariane Schneider has been working as a research assistant at the Professorship for Geography Education at Technical University of Dresden since April 2023. From 2016 to 2022, she studied to become a secondary school teacher of geography and mathematics at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. As part of her dissertation, she is working on the ReTransfer joint project (in the context of the competence network lernen:digital), where she focuses in particular on digital storytelling as a communicative approach to media-based knowledge transfer in the context of sustainability. Her research focuses on geography didactics at the intersection of digitality and education for sustainable development, as well as journalistic sustainability communication.

Dr. Niklas Völkening studierte Geographie, Volkswirtschaftslehre sowie Raumordnung und Landesplanung an der Universität Augsburg. Seit 2016 ist er wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter am dortigen Lehrstuhl für Humangeographie und Transformationsforschung; im Jahr 2022 wurde er mit der Dissertation „Identity, Commodification and Revolution: Tourism and the Transformation of Society, Politics and Space in Cuba“ promoviert. In seiner Forschung arbeitet er zu sozial-ökologischen Transformationsprozessen, Mensch-Umwelt-Verhältnissen und der geographischen Tourismusforschung. Dabei wendet er meist qualitative Methoden an und legt seinen regionalen Fokus auf Kuba, Estland und Süddeutschland. Seit 2023 ist er Managing Editor des STANDORT – Zeitschrift für Angewandte Geographie und engagiert sich im Wissenstransfer zwischen Forschung und Praxis. Zudem ist er Sprecher des Regionalforums „Schwaben“ im Deutschen Verband für Angewandte Geographie (DVAG). Lehrseitig betreut er zahlreiche Abschlussarbeiten und entwickelt Formate an der Schnittstelle von empirischer Sozialforschung und regionaler Transformations-/Tourismusforschung.

Prof. Dr. Martin Franz ist Professor für Humangeographie mit wirtschaftsgeographischem Schwerpunkt am Institut für Geographie der Universität Osnabrück. Er beschäftigt sich mit den Auswirkungen von großen gesellschaftlichen und wirtschaftlichen Veränderungen, speziell des wirtschaftlichen Strukturwandels, der Digitalisierung, Prozessen der Globalisierung sowie der Nachhaltigkeitstransition, und den daraus resultierenden Reaktionen betroffener Personen, Unternehmen und Institutionen. Insbesondere interessiert ihn, wie verschiedene Akteursgruppen versuchen, gesellschaftliche und wirtschaftliche Veränderungen zu beeinflussen und sich – bzw. ihre Aktivitäten – an diese Prozesse anpassen. Nach dem Studium der Geographie, Soziologie und Kartographie in Bochum arbeitete Martin Franz bis 2006 am Zentrum für Interdisziplinäre Ruhrgebietsforschung (heute Regionalforschung) in Bochum. Anschließend wechselte er an den Fachbereich Geographie der Philipps-Universität Marburg. Dort promovierte er 2008 zu dem Thema „Brachflächenentwicklung in Europa und die institutionelle Dimension von Nachhaltigkeit, dargelegt am Beispiel Oberschlesien". Im Jahr 2011 folgte die Habilitation zum Thema „Changing power structures in agro-food networks – case studies from India". Im Wintersemester 2013/14 wurde die Arbeit von Martin Franz als Akademischer Rat auf Zeit in Marburg durch eine Vertretungsprofessur für Wirtschaftsgeographie an der Universität Bayreuth unterbrochen. Seit 2014 hat er die Professur für Humangeographie mit wirtschaftsgeographischem Schwerpunkt an der Universität Osnabrück inne. Er ist Mitglied des Instituts für Umweltsystemforschung und Leiter des Instituts für Geographie.

Prof. Dr. Britta Höllermann leitet die Arbeitsgruppe Geographische Mensch-Umwelt-Forschung an der Universität Osnabrück. Als Geographin mit umfangreicher Forschungserfahrung in Subsahara-Afrika und Deutschland, ist sie spezialisiert auf Mensch-Umwelt-Interaktionen, insbesondere im Hinblick auf sozio-hydrologische Dynamiken und Risikomanagement in Wasser- und Agrarsystemen. Ihre Forschung legt Wert auf partizipative Ansätze, die untersuchen, wie Interessengruppen Unsicherheiten im Zusammenhang mit hydroklimatischen Risiken wahrnehmen und bewältigen. Derzeit leitet sie ein Projekt innerhalb der ECORISK-Graduiertenschule, das sich mit systemischen Risiken und Regimewechseln befasst.