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 has been studying for a Bachelor’s degree in Geography with a minor in Political Science at Julius-Maximilians University Würzburg since 2022. Her focus is on Physical Geography, in which she is currently writing her bachelor’s thesis on Germany’s climatic water balance. In addition to her studies, she works as a student assistant at Recurrent Energy Germany GmbH, where she is involved in project development for solar parks and battery storage systems. Through her years of engagement with the Geography Student Initiative at her university, she became involved with GeoDACH e.V. (the association representing German-speaking geography students from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland), the organizer of national student conferences. Since January 2025, she has been active as a board member of the association and has been elected chairperson for 2026. She was also part of the organizing team for the Young Geography Congress 2025 in Leipzig, organized by GeoDACH e.V.

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 studied Geography, Economics, and Spatial Planning at the University of Augsburg. Since 2016, he has been a research associate at the Chair of Human Geography and Transformation Research at the same university. In 2022, he received his doctorate with the dissertation “Identity, Commodification and Revolution: Tourism and the Transformation of Society, Politics and Space in Cuba.” His research focuses on social-ecological transformation processes, human–environment relationships, and geographical tourism research. He primarily uses qualitative methods and focuses regionally on Cuba, Estonia, and southern Germany. Since 2023, he has served as Managing Editor of STANDORT – Journal of Applied Geography and is actively involved in knowledge transfer between research and practice. Additionally, he is the spokesperson for the regional forum “Swabia” within the German Association for Applied Geography (DVAG). In teaching, he supervises numerous theses and develops formats at the intersection of empirical social research and regional transformation and tourism studies.

Prof. Dr. Martin Franz is a Professor of Human Geography with a focus on Economic Geography at the Institute of Geography at the University of Osnabrück. His research examines the effects of major social and economic changes—specifically economic structural change, digitalization, globalization processes, and the sustainability transition—and the resulting responses of affected individuals, companies, and institutions. He is particularly interested in how different actor groups attempt to influence societal and economic changes and adapt themselves—or their activities—to these processes. After studying Geography, Sociology, and Cartography in Bochum, Martin Franz worked until 2006 at the Center for Interdisciplinary Ruhr Area Research (now Regional Research) in Bochum. He then moved to the Department of Geography at Philipps University Marburg, where he completed his doctorate in 2008 on the topic “Brownfield Development in Europe and the Institutional Dimension of Sustainability, Illustrated by the Case of Upper Silesia.” In 2011, he completed his habilitation on “Changing Power Structures in Agro-Food Networks – Case Studies from India.” In the winter semester of 2013/14, Martin Franz’s work as a temporary Academic Councilor in Marburg was interrupted by a visiting professorship in Economic Geography at the University of Bayreuth. Since 2014, he has held the professorship of Human Geography with a focus on Economic Geography at the University of Osnabrück. He is a member of the Institute for Environmental Systems Research and the head of the Institute of Geography.

Prof. Dr. Britta Höllermann leads the Geographical Human–Environment Research group at the University of Osnabrück. As a geographer with extensive research experience in Sub-Saharan Africa and Germany, she specializes in human–environment interactions, particularly regarding socio-hydrological dynamics and risk management in water and agricultural systems. Her research emphasizes participatory approaches that examine how stakeholders perceive and manage uncertainties related to hydroclimatic risks. She is currently leading a project within the ECORISK Graduate School, focusing on systemic risks and regime shifts.