Ing. Veronika Išová holds a degree in Management of Commerce from the Faculty of Economics, University of South Bohemia in České Budějovice. After completing her studies, she worked in the area of EU Funds and she administered projects OP VaVpl at Brno University of Technology. Currently, for the duration of Bc. Petra Burišková’s maternity and parental leave, she works as the secretary of the Head of the Department.

Ester Koňařová works as a project administrator and manages projects funded by the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic (TAČR) and the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR). She holds a degree in Public Economics from the Faculty of Economics and Administration at Masaryk University. During her studies, she spent half a year at Groupe École supérieure de commerce de Troyes in the French region Champagne – Ardenne. As a student and professionally, she has been interested in social enterprise and project management. She enjoys participating in workshops, MOOC courses, and other educational activities.

Tereza Modráková has worked mainly as a manager of educational projects OPVK at the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University and at FNUSA-ICRC at St. Anne’s University Hospital in Brno. Currently, she administers EEA and Norway Grants and other projects at the Department. She holds a degree in sociology from the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University and in economics from the Faculty of Business and Economics at Mendel University in Brno. During her studies, she spent a year at Université Catholique de Lyon in France.

As a doctoral student, Jan focuses primarily on the economy of residential eco-communities. His extensive dissertation research includes numerous eco-community projects in six European countries. As a research specialist, he works on preparing a new international Master’s degree program focused on Sustainability-Driven Entrepreneurship, carried out as part of OPRDE Smart Accelerator in the South Moravian Region project.

Mgr. Mikuláš Černík is interested in environmental justice, political ecology, and environmental conflicts. The topic of his dissertation is a comparison of the conditions for protest against coal mining in the Czech Republic and Poland. He works as Dr. Christian Kerschner’s assistant on the VE²ENEX project. This project examines issues related to the vulnerability of economies (and their individual sectors) during transformations of the energy system.

Martin Černý holds degrees in Environmental Studies from the Faculty of Social Studies and in Economic Policy and Administration from the Faculty of Economics and Administration at Masaryk University. In his dissertation, he deals with the transition to a low-carbon economy, economic degrowth, and climate justice. He participates in the project MEDEAS – Modelling Energy System Development under Environmental and Socioeconomic Constraints – in which he uses the input-output analysis to model the impact of a low-carbon transition on the structure of employment in the European Union and on the production of greenhouse gas emissions.

Jan Haverkamp is nuclear energy and energy policy specialist for Greenpeace and professional group facilitator. The Dutchman works since 1986 in the development of environmental NGOs in Central Europe. His academic background is in biochemistry, nuclear physics, environmental sciences and social and communication psychology. He teaches ‘facilitation of environmental communication processes’ and ‘the role of environmental NGOs in society’ at the Masaryk University. He has two children and lives in Gdansk and Prague.

Dr. Klaus Hubacek is an ecological economist with a research focus on conceptualizing and modeling the interactions between human and environmental systems and developing and modeling scenarios of future change. Klaus has worked extensively with stakeholders in participatory research projects and led large interdisciplinary research teams. He has published over 200 research articles on topics such as climate change adaptation and mitigation, participatory modeling, management of ecosystems services, land use change and governance. Klaus has published in international journals such as Nature, Nature Climate Change, Nature Sustainability, and the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

He conducted studies for a number of national agencies in Austria, the Czech Republic, China, Japan, Spain, the UK, and the U.S. and international institutions such as the European Commission, the Interamerican Development Bank, the OECD, and the World Bank. He served on advisory boards for a number of agencies such as the Climate Center of the City of Shanghai, China and the Sustainable Land Use program of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Klaus also serves on the editorial board of a number of scientific journals such as Applied Energy and Industrial Ecology.

Mgr. Tomáš Chabada holds a Master’s degree in sociology and is now in the Doctoral Program in Environmental Humanities at the Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University. At the Department he participates in research projects that deal with the relationship of the Czech public to nature and the environment. In his dissertation, he focuses on public attitudes and behavior of the public regarding climate change. He teaches courses on global environmental problems and on environmental issues in the Czech Republic.

Mgr. et Mgr. Šárka Křepelková is a doctoral student, an ecopsychologist and a lecturer of developmental courses. She focuses on the topic of children’s contact with nature. She participates in the CIVIS project that deals with developing civic and social competencies in education.

Mgr. Eva Pražanová, Ph.D., holds a Master’s degree in history and theory of the visual arts from Palacký University in Olomouc and a doctoral degree from Charles University in Prague. She focuses on the history and theory of twentieth-century regional planning in the Czech Republic. She collaborates with the Department on the grant project on Environmentally Friendly Tendencies in Czechoslovak Urbanism and Regional Planning (1965-1990).

Thomas Smith researches the role of creativity and craft in grassroots sustainability transitions, with particular interests in post-capitalist social theory (relating to diverse and community economies). Thomas received his PhD in Human Geography at the University of St Andrews, examining the role of the maker movement and community workshops in Edinburgh, Scotland, and is also a member of the editorial collective at the Dark Mountain Project (https://dark-mountain.net/). He is the author of Sustainability, Wellbeing and the Posthuman Turn (2018, Palgrave MacMillan), has edited three books for Dark Mountain, and has published in a number of leading geographical journals.

Mgr. Lucie Sovová is interested in alternative economies and sustainable food systems. Her dissertation deals with food self-provisioning in urban gardens. She was involved in the Department’s research project on allotment gardens. As part of the project “Ecological and Environmental Economics – Critical Perspectives”, she co-teaches a Bachelor level Seminar on Ecological Economics. She also cooperates with Wageningen University in the Netherlands.

Mgr. Renata Svobodová specializes in the psychology of climate change. She is interested in how people perceive climate change, what they feel, and how they cope with it. She participated in the research for “The Czech Public and Climate Change” project, and now she is on the team that maps Czech people’s environmental attitudes and behavior. She received an honorable mention within the Josef Vavroušek Prize for her Master’s thesis. She is the editor of the magazine Sedmá generace [The Seventh Generation].

Mgr. Petra Šimonová studied in the field of environmental protection and then worked for ten years in the non-profit sector as an environmental education methodologist, mainly in teacher-training and the educational program Ekoškola [Ecoschool]. Currently, she does environmental education research. At the Department, she focuses on participative approaches and on developing students’ action competencies. She also participates in the CIVIS project in which she examines the impact of educational programs on the development of civic and social competencies.

Christos is a Ramón y Cajal Senior Research Fellow, with the JHU-UPF Public Policy Centre and the Department of Political and Social Sciences of Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain. His line of research looks at the politics of environmental governance, transformation and conflict in the fields of political ecology, ecological economics, and degrowth. He has worked for the Institute of Environmental Science & Technology (ICTA) of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) managing the FP7 Marie Curie ‘European Network of Political
Ecology’ (ENTITLE), and coordinating the research of the FP7 project ‘Climate Change, Hydro-conflicts and Human Security’ (CLICO); he has also worked as a Lecturer in Environmental Economics at the Scottish Agricultural College in Edinburgh, UK.