Yvonne Walz

Dr Yvonne Walz is an Associate Academic Officer in the Environmental Vulnerability and Ecosystem Services (EVES) section of UNU-EHS. She has a broad interest in understanding drivers of risk, identifying ecosystem-based approaches to reduce current and future risks and evaluating adaptation strategies to impacts of climate change. In addition, she conducts research with the specific focus to support countries in monitoring progress towards the implementation of the international frameworks, such as the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, or the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development.

At UNU-EHS, Dr Walz has been leading and managing multiple projects in the field of risk and climate change research, ecosystem-based approaches and geospatial modelling to monitor indicators of the Sendai Framework (e.g. CLIMAFRI, VALE, FURIFLOOD, Align-SLM, EviDENz, WASCAL, etc.). She supports the section head in securing third-party funding, and supervises team members, visiting scientists and master students.

In terms of capacity development, Dr Walz is actively involved in teaching activities of the joint MSc program on Geography of Environmental Risk and Human Security of UNU-EHS and University of Bonn, at UNU-MERIT and at the WASCAL PhD program on Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management in Lomé, Togo. In the context of the CLIMAFRI and VALE projects, she conceptualized and designed in her role as project lead training of trainers programs based on the overall project results.

Prior to joining UNU-EHS, Dr. Walz worked as a researcher at the University of Würzburg in the Remote Sensing Department (4 years), and at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Health Promoting Water Management and Risk Communication at the University Clinics in Bonn (3 years), where she gained work experience in analyzing socio-ecological systems in the context of environment and human health. At the Centre for Satellite Based Crisis Information (ZKI) at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), she led the health mapping activities within the GMES RESPOND Service Elements of the European Space Agency (ESA), and was involved in crisis intervention and spatial damage assessment. During her work at the Department of Land Information (DLI) in Australia, Dr Walz conducted research on monitoring of burn severity and the impact of fire management practices in temperate forests of South-Western Australia.