We welcome our PhD fellow Siyu at Humboldt University Berlin

We are very happy to welcome a new COUPLED fellow, Siyu!

Siyu Qin (ESR 01), supervised by Tobias Kuemmerle, will be working on the research project Understanding conservation telecouplings, based at Humboldt University, Berlin.

Before COUPLED, Siyu was working at Conservation International’s Moore Center for Science as a researcher and project manager. Her work involved research, technical assistance, and capacity building to advance the understanding and governing of Protected Area Downgrading Downsizing and Degazettement (PADDD) and conservation beyond protected areas. Through those projects, Siyu had the opportunity to explore the history and local context of conservation interventions and policies in the Amazon and other tropical countries. Siyu also interned at WWF-US on land use scenario development for ecosystem services modeling, right after she earned my Master of Environmental Management from Duke University in 2015.

The past three years on international conservation and area-based approaches naturally prepared Siyu and led her to the COUPLED project “Understanding Conservation Coupling.” She is intrigued by the spatial/social context as well as the bargaining process leading to the adoption and abandonment of conservation interventions, and how international funding and discussions influence such decisions. Specifically, she finds it exciting to (re)connect conservation research with land system science and sustainability science to explore how to balance human resource use and the protection of nature. Siyu’s project will combine place-based approach with network analysis to link the flows of information and funding with conserved lands and outcomes.

Again, a warm welcome to you, Siyu! We are looking forward to a successful cooperation in the upcoming years.

You can find more information about Siyu’s research project here.