Dr. Elisa Kochskämper

Elisa Kochskämper has been a research associate in the Urban Sustainability Transformations research group (formerly: Institutional Change and Regional Commons research unit) since October 2019. From December 2020 to the end of 2021, she led the Institute's own flagship project "Critical Infrastructures. The political construction, spatiality and governance of criticality". The focus of her research is urban climate politics, in particular climate adaptation, urban resilience and processes of political perpetuation.

Elisa Kochskämper studied political science at Ludwigs-Maximilians-Universität Munich (2005-2011) and Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico (2008/2009). She completed her doctorate at Leuphana University Lüneburg (2014-2020, Dr. rer. Pol.). There she was also employed as a research assistant since 2013 and conducted research in particular on environmental and water policy. In her doctoral thesis, she investigated the potential environmental impacts of different learning modes and mechanisms for water governance. Prior to her academic career, she worked as a junior consultant for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in the National Water Agency at the Ministry of Environment of Mexico (2011/2012). She is currently completing her habilitation at the Department of Political Science at the Freie Universiät Berlin.