dr. M. Kaufmann (Maria)

Maria is Assistant Professor at Radboud University Nijmegen and conducts international comparative research in the fields of climate change adaptation, energy transition/climate mitigation, alternative economic systems (e.g. degrowth).

She focuses on three main lines of research:
(1) analysis of sustainability transformations and institutional dynamics (factors of stability and change);
(2) critical discourse analysis of sustainability transformations, futures and environmental justice; and
(3) (environmental) justice, i.e. identifying inequalities (i.e. unequal distribution of environmental costs and benefits), their underlying justice discourses (i.e. what different actors consider to be 'just and fair'), and how these discourses are embedded in structures and institutions.

Maria is co-coordinator of the TransAct (Transformation for Sustainability in Action) Research HotSpot at the Institute for Management Research.

Her research has been published in leading multidisciplinary journals such as Global Environmental Change, Regional Environmental Change, Journal of Environmental Management, Land Use Policy or Ecology and Society.

At the Radboud University (Department: Geography, Planning and Environment) she is involved in various teaching activities at Bachelor and Master level: Qualitative Methods, Globalising Worlds, supervision of bachelor and master theses, etc. She is Junior Lecturer of the year 2023.

• environmental justice, sustainability transformations, environmental politics, discourses

• TransAct, co-coordinator