Projects

Stability and Change in Language Contact: The Case of Southern Ndebele (South Africa)

Linguistic Variation as an Indicator of Historical Relations and Language Contact: A Comparative grammar of four Mara Bantu languages (Tanzania)

Antti Autio is a Ph.D. student in the Doctoral Programme in Interdisciplinary Environmental Sciences (DENVI) at the University of Helsinki. He holds a master’s degree in Development Geography and his dissertation research focuses on smallholder farmer’s adaptation to climate change in East Africa from the perspective of political ecology.

My research focuses on food security related initiatives in the Global South. I work on aquaculture and specifically fish farming development, food innovation using neglected foods and indigenous knowledge, food safety and quality management as well as value chain management and development of gender-based value chains. The development of tertiary education (vocational and higher education) is a cross-cutting theme in all of my global engagements in research and education.

Projects

Global Foodnet: Ancient Crops for Food Security

Central Asia Finnish Education Institutes for Green Biotechnology and Food Security

Aquaculture and fisheries development in the Kyrgyz Republic

Green biotechnology for food security

Development of women fish farmer cooperatives in Nepal

Capacity Building in Fisheries and Aquaculture Education in the Kyrgyz Republic

Education collaboration opportunities between Finland and South Africa

Bridging existing and new approaches for science, technology and innovation cooperation between Finland and Africa

Food safety and quality management

Teachers of the future : Finnish-Namibian collaborative teacher education

Food product development from indigenous foods

Role of Finnish higher education in global food and nutrition security

Niti's research interests lie in the intersection between design methods, multidisciplinary approaches, and participatory social design-driven transformation that takes a humble approach within confined settings (Markussen, 2017; Koskinen and Hush, 2016; Ehn, 1993). She brings more than 2 decades of design and innovation practice to her doctoral studies.

Projects

Promoting Education and Research on Energy Efficient Lighting and Renewable Energy for Sustainable Development (EARLI)

My research explores the links between education and biodiversity conservation. I am particularly interested in how conservation NGOs implement education programmes in rural communities in Madagascar and how they affect local cultures, environments and knowledge systems. I have mainly been doing qualitative research using interviews, focus groups and participant observation as methodologies.

Projects

Unpacking the role of education as a tool for biodiversity conservation

Projects

Public and non-motorized transit in sub Saharan Africa

I am a doctoral candidate in the Political, Societal and Regional Change programme experienced in qualitative research and implementation of development cooperation projects in Finland and Latin America. My doctoral research focuses on how the focus of women’s empowerment shifts when Finland’s development aid has been increasingly transferred from traditional development cooperation to the private sector through cross-sectoral partnerships with Kenya. My professional work has been focused on using research to inform project design and implementation in development cooperation initiatives for gender-based violence, gender equality, peacebuilding, psychosocial support, and migration. Previously I have conducted research on Women, Peace and Security, and feminism in Colombia, and refugees, agency, and gender-based violence in Norway.

My doctoral research aims to determine the link between Forest Landscape Restoration and Local Livelihoods in the context of the vigorous expansion of planted forests in Vietnam that is dominated by high-density monocultures of non-native species.