People at the Department of Environmental Studies

Department Staff

An aesthetician and historian of natural sciences by training, he is interested in the interrelationship of culture and nature, especially the history of aesthetic and artistic attitudes towards landscape in the modern period, the relationship between visual arts and natural sciences, and the history of nature conservation and environmental thinking. He is the author of Darwin and Aesthetics (2006), On the Picturesque. The Aesthetics of Nature between Garden and Wilderness (2011), The Aesthetics of Nature. Towards a History of the Aesthetic Appreciation of Nature (2019), among others. Chair of the discipline's board of directors.

Consultations: Tuesday 14:45-15:45

doc. Mgr. Bohuslav Binka, Ph.D.

Associate Professor

Environmental ethicist, philosopher and gestalt therapist with a focus on environmental grief, winner of the Josef Vavroušek Prize in the category of scientific research (dissertation). He has been working at our department since 2004, from 2012 to 2019 he was the head of the department. From 2019 to 2021 he served as Vice Dean for Internal and External Communication at the Faculty of Social Studies of Masaryk University. He is an expert guarantor of the Symbios project of shared housing for young adults from children's homes and students of Brno universities. He is the author of the book monographs Environmental Ethics, Analysis of Deep Ecology, Green Extremism and Ciencias sagradas.

Consultations: Monday 12:00 - 13:15 

doc. PhDr. Jan Činčera, Ph.D.

Associate professor, Departement deputy head

It deals with the theory, methodology and evaluation of environmental education, education and awareness programs. He is the author of several monographs and a number of partial research studies. He has collaborated in defining the objectives and outcomes of environmental education and the action plan of education for sustainable development. In cooperation with environmental education centres he researches educational programmes and verifies the effectiveness of new methodological approaches. In March 2022, he collaborated in the organization of the World Congress of Environmental Education in Prague.

Consultations: Wednesday 14:00 - 15:00 (ask via email before)

prof. RNDr. Hana Librová, CSc.

Founder of the department

A sociologist and biologist, she is interested in the connections between lifestyle and environmental problems; her research focuses on environmentally friendly lifestyles.
Besides publishing in Czech and international academic journals, she has also published several book-length monographs: Sociální potřeba a hodnota krajiny [The Social Need And Value Of The Landscape] (1987), Láska ke krajině?
[Love For The Landscape?] (1988), Pestří a zelení: Kapitoly o dobrovolné skromnosti [The Colourful and the Greens: chapters on voluntary modesty.] (1994), Vlažní a Váhaví: Kapitoly o ekologickém luxusu [The Half-hearted and the Hesitant: Chapters on Ecological Luxury] (2003).

 

Mgr. Jan Dostalík, Ph.D.

Assistant professor

He is mainly interested in the history of environmentally friendly trends in urban planning and spatial planning. His teaching focuses on the following topics: architecture - city - landscape. He tries to combine his work experience from a private company, where he worked for several years on development studies and master plans, with a historical and environmental perspective. His professional interests also include 20th and 21st century architectural history and theory and environmental history. He is the author of Organic Modernity. Environmentally Friendly Tendencies in Czechoslovak Urbanism and Spatial Planning (1918-1968) (2015).

Consultations: Wednesday 15:30 - 17:00 

Mgr. Eva Fraňková, Ph.D.

assistant professor

Assistant professor, graduated in biology in České Budějovice (B.Sc.) and in environmental humanities (M.Sc. and PhD.) in Brno. During her studies she gained experience in the functioning of community-based ethical financial institutions in the UK and in the concept of ecological economics, political ecology and the work of the Research and Degrowth group in Barcelona. She has a long-standing interest in alternative economic practices, the topic of local production and consumption and the concept of sustainable non-growth. She has recently completed research on the functioning of social enterprises in the Czech Republic and is currently working on bringing the topic of degrowth into the Czech mainstream. She also works with the organisations Trast pro ekonomiku a společnost, NaZemi a Re:set - Platforma pro sociálně-ekologickou transformaci.

Consultations: Thursday 10:00-11:00 

She is interested in environmental sociology and gerontology, and also teaches courses on social science methodology at the department. She is interested in the sociology of space, housing and home (e.g. the topic of suburbanization or single-person households), environmental gerontology (the relationship between aging and the environment, the effects of climate change on older people), or lifestyle changes in an intergenerational perspective - she has collaborated with Prof. Hana Librova on research on "the diverse" and their children. Currently, within the framework of the GAČR project, she focuses on how older people interpret the impacts of climate change and environmental crisis. She is (co-)author of a number of publications and member of professional societies (CSU, ESA, CSO).

Consultations: by appointment only by email: galcanov@fss.muni.cz

 

She graduated in biology at Charles University, her PhD thesis at the FSS at MU focused on (eco) social entrepreneurship. Her research focuses on the economic roots of the ecological crisis, a critique of hidden economic assumptions and alternatives to the economic mainstream. Her main interests include the so-called economic alternatives or eco-social entrepreneurship, and in 2014-2016 she led a research project on this topic at GAČR (http://alternativniekonomiky.fss.muni.cz). She is the author of Living in the Cracks (2005), Where Money is Servant, Not Master (2008), Economic Dissenters (2014) and Ecological Economics: Selected Chapters (2015). She is a co-founder of the Trust for Economics and Society, a member of the Community Economies Institute and the editorial board of the journal Seventh Generation.

Consultations: Thursday 15:30-17:00 (except 15.9.)

Christian Kimmich, Ph.D., M.Sc.

Research specialist

Researcher and teacher. His research focuses on the use of nature for economic purposes; issues of management and common ownership of natural resources, especially cooperative ownership. In addition, he is interested in the sustainability of natural resource infrastructure and the topic of technological innovation and its role in the use of nature. Christian Kimmich holds a PhD from Humboldt University in Berlin, where he previously studied agricultural sciences and economics. Previously, he was, among others, a visiting scholar at Indiana University (Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Analysis) and at the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy in Potsdam. He was a research fellow at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research. He is now also based in Vienna at the Institut für Höhere Studien. He is known for his publications on situation-relational networks.

PhDr. Jan Krajhanzl, Ph.D.

Research specialist

Assistant professor, social and environmental psychologist. He deals with what helps and hinders people to protect the environment, why contact with nature is important from the psychological point of view, what is characteristic for the Czech public opinion in the environmental field and how to communicate with different target groups about "green" topics. He is the author of Psychology of Relationship with Nature and Environment (2014) and co-author of Relationship of Czech Public to Nature and Environment (2018). He cooperates with non-profit organizations and public institutions. Together with his team, he founded the Institute 2050, which is dedicated to empirical research of public opinion and preparation of communication activities to reach different segments of the Czech public.

Consultations: ask via email before

Mgr. Vojtěch Pelikán, Ph.D.

Research specialist

Environmental anthropologist working on environmentally friendly lifestyles, perceptions of environmental issues or media. Graduate of Environmental Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the Masaryk University; his dissertation examined the links between Roma and nature. Recently, he has been involved in longitudinal research on the ecologically friendly lifestyle of the so-called "diverse" and in research on the environmental context of the restitution process or the perception of drought and climate change. He spices up his academic work by popularizing in the social-ecological journal The Seventh Generation.

Consultations: Thursday 14:00-15:00

Mgr. Péter Szabó, Ph.D. M.A.

assistant professor

Assistant professor of environmental history and historical ecology. A historian by training, he also works at the Botanical Institute of the CAS. From 2012-2016 he led the European Research Council (ERC)-funded interdisciplinary grant LONGWOOD, which investigated the history of Moravian forests over the last 8,000 years. He is the author of numerous scientific publications and serves on the editorial board of the journals Environment and History and Global Environment.

Consultation hours: by appointment by e-mail

Ing. Zbyněk Ulčák, Ph.D.

Assistant professor

Landscape ecologist, agricultural engineer, and occasional insite poet; focuses on sustainable landscape management and the social aspects of organic farming and food production. He has also published on these topics in the national and international professional press, and collaborates with the Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas, Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Lisbon. Study advisor and field coordinator for Erasmus+ study and work placements.

Consultations: Tuesday 14:30- 16:00

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Administration and projects

Bc. Petra Burišková

Department Secretary

She takes care of the Department matters, such as preparation of contracts and personnel agenda, scholarships payments, schedules, property management etc. She tries to keep everything running as it should. Previously, she worked as a secretary at the Faculty of Medicine of MU. She studied at the Faculty of Arts of Modern Greek Language and Literature and during her studies she was several months of study in Greece.

Mgr. Kristína Markechová

project manager

Kristína Markechová works as a project manager and focuses mostly on TAČR and GAČR projects.  She studied international relations and european studies at FSS MU. During her studies she focused on the topic of security and the EU and attended internships in the Center for Security Analyses and Prevention and in the Information Center of Europe Direct Brno.

Mgr. Kateřina Hendrychová

secretary and promotion coordinator of the department

Kateřina is in charge of the study agenda. In addition, she coordinates the promotion of the Department and Environmental Studies. She graduated in Czech language and literature at the Faculty of Arts of MU, specializing in Czech as a foreign language. During her studies, she undertook an internship at CJV MU. In her free time she teaches Czech to foreigners.

Mgr. Tomáš Chabada, Ph.D.

Doctoral Student and Specialist

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. Mikuláš Černík

Doctoral Student and Specialist

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.

Harald Waxenecker, MA

Early Stage Researcher

He has long-standing experience of doing research on power networks in Central America. His Ph.D project explores drivers and dynamics of (catastrophic) transitions in political and economic systems, based on an empirical and comparative network/connectivity approach in transactions between private (economic) and public (political) nodes. Harald studied History at the University of La Habana (2014) and Latin American Studies at the University of Vienna (2018).

Yanhua Shi, M.A.

Early Stage Researcher

Yanhua is currently working in the iConn project as a Marie Curie Early Stage Researcher. Her topic is to identify the critical nodes and determinants for transitions in various social-ecological systems, applying methods such as input-out analysis, social network analysis, game theory etc. She holds a master’s degree of rural development jointly issued by Ghent University and Humboldt University, of which her master thesis is to explore the transitional role of informational and knowledge governance in climate change adaptation. Prior to joining the Department of Environmental Studies, she worked in the field of deforestation-free supply chain for NGO and environmental consultancy company.

Researcher. He has a background in ecological economics and is a professor at the Autonoma University of Barcelona. His main research focuses on the analysis of the social metabolism of agricultural systems to investigate their sustainability in relation to the past and present landscape and agroecological best practices. He does this in the broader context of degrowth studies, sustainable ecological communities and the squatters movement. He is working on the implementation of a doughnut economics model for the municipality of Barcelona.

Research Associate, assistant Professor at Modul University Vienna. Christian holds an MA (Magister) Business and Economics (University of Vienna) and an MSc and PhD Ecological Economics (Autonomous University of Barcelona). He served /serves as Principle Investigator of several national and international Projects relating to alternative economic approaches (Degrowth, SSE), the Energy transition and Resource limitations e.g.: MEDEAS or i-CONN. His publications in the field of alternative economic approaches (Degrowth, Steady State Economy) and the Energy Transition (Peak-Oil, Post-Carbon Society, Input-Output modelling of Resource limitations) are widely cited (over 2300 citations according to Google Scholar). These include the editorial lead in a special issue on Degrowth and Technology; a seminal paper on the link between Degrowth and the Steady State economy and an assessment of the potential vulnerabilities of our economies when faced with the limitations of key resources. His hobbies are skiing, looking after the small family forest plot and orchard, DIY and gardening.

Research interests: Degrowth, Steady State Economy, Peak-Oil, Vulnerability, Energy Studies, Input-Output Analysis, attitudes towards technology, Degrowth & Technology, Systems Science, Connectivity.

 

Mgr. Terezie Lokšová, Ph.D.

Researcher

Urban sociologist working on the intersections of politics, expertise and the material environment. In 2023, she completed her dissertation at the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University on how organized citizen engagement transforms urban governance and architectural work. As part of her work at the Department of Environmental Studies, she is working on how municipalities deal with the impacts of climate change and environmental crises as part of a GACR project.

Doctoral students
  Name
year of admission
Status
Supervisor
Theme

Mgr. Anna Bromová

Building Resilience Thinking with the Use of Design and Futures Studies Tools full-time, single-subject Mgr. Veronika Zuzana Harmáčková, Ph.D. Building Resilience Thinking with the Use of Design and Futures Studies Tools
 Mgr. Mikuláš Černík 2017 full-time Kerschner (consultant Velicu) The conditions for coal mining resistance in Poland and the Czech Republic
Mgr. Ing. Miloslav Kolenatý 2020 combined Činčera Czech Students and Climate Change

Valentina Vittoria Loru

2024 full-time Činčera Empowering the Future: Action Competence of Czech Teenagers in Promoting Sustainability

Mgr. Ján Markoš

2024 combined Binka The contributions and limitations of David Abram's thinking in the light of the growing necessity to communicate environmental issues to wide(r) public
Mgr. et Mgr. Michal Medek 2020 full-time Činčera Participative approaches in heritage interpretation
Yanhua Shi, M.A. 2021 full-time Kimmich Critical nodes in economic connectivity: A multi-method application to facilitate structural transitions
 Mgr. Sandra Silná 2018 full-time Binka Přemysl Pitter. Theological and Ethical Reflection of Animal Status and Rights. Historical and Present Relations
 Mgr. et Mgr. Ľuboš Slovák 2015 full-time Stibral The Idea of Nature in Environmental Thinking
Mgr. Tereza Špinková  2019 full-time Stibral Changes in the Relationship between Animals and Humans in Contemporary Czech and Slovak Audiovisual Art
Harald Waxenecker, M.A. 2021 full-time Ocelík Dramatic regime shifts in socio-political networks
Mgr. Karolína Žižková  2023 full-time Profant The Future of Czech Lithium: Green Extractivism, Discourse and Sociotechnical Imaginaries of the Just Transition

 

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