Katharina Waha's work is closely aligned with the goals of the Center for Climate Resilience to create a comprehensive research concept on climate resilience and to focus on the interactions between the Earth system and human societies. She is an agronomist interested in multidisciplinary research to understand the interactions between the atmosphere, biosphere, and human societies, particularly as they pertain to agricultural systems. This is the second joint appointment of geographers by the School of Applied Computing, the Department of Geography, and the Center for Climate Resilience.

"I am very excited to join the Center for Climate Resilience as this is a very rare opportunity to help build a strong new research center on a topic that is so close to my heart," said Dr. Waha. "I'm honored to join a team of researchers who not only want to make a difference in their individual disciplines, but also contribute to interdisciplinary solutions for a more resilient future." In previous positions, Dr. Waha was a scientist at CSIRO, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization - Australia's national science agency, and at PIK, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Dr. Waha's scientific career includes climate change impact research, spatial analysis, and food security studies. She is a co-author and reviewer of the recently published IPCC Special Report on Climate Change and Land and the IPCC 6th Assessment Report.

Recent research includes analysis of the relationship between agricultural diversification strategies in low- and middle-income countries and food security ( Waha et al. 2022, Menesch et al. 2023), and extension of spatially explicit global agricultural land use representations ( Waha et al. 2020) and studies of past and future climate trends and their relevance to agriculture in Australia and Africa ( Nkwasa et al. 2023, Waha et al. 2022).

Dr. Waha's significant scientific achievements are evidenced by over 40 publications with numerous invitations to speak at international conferences. Dr. Waha has been a member of the Agricultural Model Intercomparison and Improvement Project ( AgMIP) since 2011 and a member of the Global Land Program ( GLP), a global research project of FutureEarth, since 2017. She is an associate editor of the Springer journal Food Security and a passionate advocate for research on climate change impacts in developing countries, and geographic research and spatial analysis. Dr. Waha holds a master's degree in geography and a PhD in environmental science and lives in Augsburg, Germany.


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