Sarah-Lan
Mathez-Stiefel
Senior Research Scientist
Centre for Development and Environment (CDE), University of Bern
Originally from Switzerland, Sarah-Lan is an ethnobiologist and geographer with extensive working experience in Latin America and Eastern and Southern Africa. She holds a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Bern, Switzerland. Her professional interests focus on sustainable development and natural resource management, indigenous environmental knowledge, local food systems, social-ecological resilience, and social learning processes. Presently a Senior Research Scientist at the Centre for Development and Environment of the University of Bern, she has over 16 years of experience in the management of and scientific expertise for international cooperation programs involving research institutions, NGOs, and community-based organizations. She has been based for over 12 years in Lima, Peru, where she was a Postdoctoral Fellow and then a Researcher at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) from 2014 to 2018. Since 2010, she has also been actively involved in the NGO sector, first as Executive Director and then as Board Member at A Rocha Peru, a Peruvian environmental non-profit organization focusing on community-based conservation and environmental education. Among other professional offices, she has been a Board Member of the International Society of Ethnobiology from 2010 to 2014. Since 2016, she is Associate Editor of the peer-reviewed journal Mountain Research and Development.