I am a Finlandssvensk researcher, born in Åbo, Finland and raised in Huizen, The Netherlands.
I grew up alongside forests and wetlands. One of the books I remember most reading as a child was ‘Journey to the River Sea’ by Eva Ibbotson and I dreamt of seeing the Amazon for myself one day.
At 17 I moved to Edinburgh to do my BSc in Ecological Science at the University of Edinburgh. During my first year I found an opportunity to join research teams out in Peru for the summer. This was the start of my tropical fieldwork, and the following year I managed to head out to Indonesian Borneo for the first time. There, at 19 years old, I fell in love with the peat-swamp forest and it’s wonderous biodiversity – and this would turn into the place I’d return to for the following decade of my life. The year after I returned to Borneo to work as a volunteer coordinator for what is now Borneo Nature Foundation.
After graduating from Edinburgh I was offered a PhD at the University of Leicester to work with Prof Sue Page, Dr Mark Harrison (BNF) and Prof Caroline Upton. My PhD explored peatland livelihoods and fish–river–human–spirit relationships in Indonesian Borneo. I spent almost two years in Sebangau Forest learning and collecting data. At 25 I completed my PhD at the University of Leicester, and since then have led and collaborated on projects funded by NERC, ESRC, and the Darwin Initiative, among others.
I would describe myself as an interdisciplinary environmental researcher exploring the entanglements of people, places, and more-than-human worlds. My work focuses on tropical peatlands and wetlands – from Indonesian Borneo to Madagascar and the UK – examining how livelihoods and conservation intersect. I’m particularly interested in how different forms of knowledge, cultural values, and ecological processes shape one another, and how these relationships can inform more just and sustainable environmental futures. In practice my research combines field ecology, social science, and creative participatory approaches, working closely with communities, NGOs, and conservation practitioners to bridge science and lived experience.
You can download my CV here
