Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald
About Elisabeth's Work
Elisabeth Huber-Sannwald did her masters in Biology/Botany at the Botanical Institute of the University of Innsbruck, Austria and her PhD in Range Ecology at Utah State University, Utah, U.S. She did a Postdoc at the Institute of Ecology, University of Buenos Aires as Scientific Officer of Focus 4 of the Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems (IGBP-GCTE) program. As Research Assistant, she worked at the Grassland Chair of the Technical University of Munich, Freising, Germany. In 2001 she joined as Research Professor the Division of Environmental Sciences at the Instituto Potosino de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (IPICYT), San Luis Potosi, Mexico in the area of Global Environmental Change and Complex Environmental Systems. She is an expert in dryland ecosystem ecology with focus on diversity and functioning of plants, biocrusts and soil microorganisms and their role in ecohydrological and biogeochemical processes considering the influence of global and social changes, in particular, livestock grazing, land use change and land degradation. Over the past 10 years, she has specialized in the study of the integrity of social-ecological systems considering ecosystem services as fundamental characteristic and basis of the resilience of dryland social-ecological systems and the sustainable development of rural livelihoods. Her research is interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary and includes a complex systems approach, field experimentation, participatory research, long-term ecological monitoring. She is currently coordinating the International Network for Sustainable Drylands (RISZA, http://risza.mx). She is also lead founder of the national network of Social-Ecological Participatory Observatories in Mexico, a social-ecological innovation to collectively produce, compile and exchange knowledge, strengthen transversal multistakeholder partnerships for transdisciplinary research and collaborative environmental governance and foster intercultural dialogue at the science-policy interface targeting sustainable dryland development. She currently serves as member of the Science-Policy-Interface of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification. Since 2023 she as appointed Inaugural Editor-in-Chief of new ESA/Wiley journal Earth Stewardship(https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/28353617)
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