Birgit Georgi

Independent expert, Strong Cities in a Changing Climate

Birgit Georgi is an independent expert and aims to enable cities and smaller municipalities to develop and implement adaptation action and to exchange the knowledge across Europe. She builds on her long-term experience on urban sustainability in Europe and has a specific focus on urban adaptation to climate change. Having worked on this subject over 9 years at the European Environment Agency, she published several landmark reports, such as “Urban adaptation to climate change in Europe” (2012 and 2016), “Financing urban adaptation to climate change” (2017) and the interactive map book urban vulnerability (2015/2019). Birgit is one of the initiators and organisers of the annual European Urban Resilience Forum (former Open European Day at Resilient Cities) since its start in 2013.

Hear her speak in Session 2B

Eleanor ChapmaN

Officer, Sustainable Resources, Climate and Resilience, ICLEI Europe

Eleanor Chapman joined ICLEI’s Sustainable Resources, Climate and Resilience team in 2017 after seven years as a practicing architect. In her current role she supports local government staff to develop and implement strategies to prepare for the effects of a changing climate. Eleanor has also pursued a concern for socially and environmentally just urban development, through involvement in civil society organisation Architects for Peace for over ten years. 

Hear her speak in Session 1B

Femke Gubbels,Urban Resilience Consultant, Global Resilient Cities Network

Femke Gubbles’ work focuses on urban resilience, delivering multi-sectoral urban programmes and integrated city strategies across Europe and the Middle East. Her academic research concentrates on urban climate adaptation and environmental inequalities in Tanzania, the Philippines, and Canada. She holds a distinction level MSc in Urbanisation and Development from the London School of Economics.

Holger Robrecht

Deputy Regional Director - Sustainable Resources, Climate & Resilience, ICLEI European Secretariat

Holger joined ICLEI in 1997. He holds a Diploma in spatial planning and is member of ICLEI’s Board of Directors, and leads ICLEI´s Sustainable Resources, Climate & Resilience team. Holger holds more than 25 years of experience in local environmental and sustainability management and planning, project development and co-ordination, team supervision as well as guidance and training. He developed, supervised and coordinated international and European projects including on urban resilience, climate adaptation, nature-based solutions and green infrastructures through various research projects and engaged with studies such as the European Environment Agency’s report on ‘Urban adaptation to climate change in Europe 2016’ and the ‘EKLIPSE Impact Evaluation Framework’. Holger has been member of several international and EU Expert Groups, incl. Working Group on Green Infrastructure (since 2014), the EU Adaptation Steering Group (2010-2013), and international and European standardisation bodies (ISO TC 268 ‘Sustainable Development of Communities’ (since 2012), CEN/CENELEC/ETSI Sector Forum Smart & Sustainable Cities and Communities (since 2015). Before joining ICLEI, Holger led the Research department Soil Contamination, Soil Protection and Land-use management at the University of Dortmund, Institute for Environmental Research (1990-97).

Josefine Hintz, Officer Sustainable Economy and Procurement, ICLEI Europe

Josefine Hintz joined ICLEI’s Sustainable Economy and Procurement team in October 2018. There, she supports global and European projects and networks such as Make ICT Fair, AI4Cities, Global Lead Cities Network or the One Planet Network Sustainable Public Procurement Programme. Prior to that, Josefine studied the MSc in Sustainable Urbanism from The Bartlett, UCL and worked as a research associate at the Circular Cities Hub at UCL, London, UK.

Lea Kleinenkuhnen, Project Manager at Climate Alliance, Covenant of Mayors Office (Belgium)

Lea supports the European Environment Agency on scientific inputs on urban adaptation, and coordinates the Climate Alliance Working Group on Adaptation, bringing together political leaders and climate experts from member cities and municipalities across Europe. As part of the Covenant of Mayors office, she focuses on capacity-building activities with a particular focus on adaptation to climate change. She holds a Master’s degree in Urban Policy.

Lina liakou, global resilient cities network 

Lina Liakou leads the resilience practice in Europe and the Middle East for the Global Resilient Cities Network pioneered by the Rockefeller Foundation (formerly 100RC), working with the 21 member cities across the region in developing their resilience thinking through long term City Resilience Strategies and actionable initiatives. Lina Liakou is an architect and urban designer from the Bartlett School of Architecture in London and a Marshall Memorial Fellow (2015) of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Linda Romanovska, International Expert - Adaptation to Climate Change

Working in the field of climate change adaptation since 2011, Linda has been focusing on topics of adaptation planning and strategy development, urban resilience, the resilience of critical infrastructure and social aspects of climate change on the European, national and local governance levels. As an expert and consultant, Linda works on background studies, policy analyses and recommendations, strategy development, project evaluations, stakeholder consultations, communication as well as knowledge management and development of guidance and capacity building activities on adaptation to climate change. Her current research focuses on better understanding of urban green infrastructure addressing various urban issues, including climate change.

Hear her speak in the Closing Plenary.

Magnus Qvant, co-founder of Nordic Urban Resilience Institute

Magnus Qvant has ten years of working experience at executive level in the field of urban resilience and is co-founder of Nordic Urban Resilience Institute. He has also more than 20 years of experience in training and practice in civil security and emergency management, both nationally and internationally. Magnus Qvant is also the Secretary- General of Resilient Regions Association, a neutral and independent arena for collaboration on Urban Resilience, addressing societal challenges involving politicians, the industry, the private and public sector as well as the academia.

Margaretha Breil

Senior Researcher on urban sustainability and climate change adaptation, CMCC

Oleksandr Sushchenko

Research Associate, Helmholtz-Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ

Priscilla Castro, Communications Officer with ICLEI European Secretariat

Priscilla Castro works in the Communications and Member Relations team at ICLEI - Local Governments for Sustainability European office. Her work involves all tasks related to communications in projects, events and initiatives from ICLEI and partners, such as designing a communications strategy, doing external and internal promotion, social media, writing press releases and articles, organising events, etc. She has worked previously as a Communications Assistant with the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Brazil. Priscilla is a journalist and holds a Master's Degree in Global Communications and International Journalist by the Free University of Berlin.

Silvia Haslinger Olsson, co-founder of Nordic Urban Resilience Institute

Silvia has several years of experience in the field of urban resilience and is co-founder of Nordic Urban Resilience Institute. Since 2013 she has been working as COO for Resilient Regions Association, a neutral and independent arena for collaboration on urban resilience, addressing societal challenges involving politicians, the industry, the private and public sector as well as the academia. Previously she has been working with cluster strategy and innovation at the Regional Development Agency is Southern Sweden.

Tracy Irvine, Managing Director/ Cofounder, Oasis Hub Ltd

Tracy has over 30 years experience in environment and science innovation, communications and business development. She is a Cofounder of Oasis Hub that acts as a window and conduit for the world’s catastrophe and climate-change data tools and services. The Oasis Hub acts as the centre of a collaboration network between climate change and catastrophe data suppliers and end-user communities. Prior to this, Tracy has been Executive Director of the Ecological Continuity Trust and SciDev.Net, a global news and analysis for development ,news agency. She also worked as business development manager at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, working on innovating plant sciences into global companies and governments and spent a number of years in Southern Africa, working as a environment and communications advisor to Civil Society.

Hear her speak in Session 1B.

Vasileios Latinos

Officer, Sustainable Resources, Climate and Resilience, ICLEI Europe

Vasileios Latinos is responsible for implementing projects and services in the topical areas of climate change adaptation, urban resilience and green infrastructure, as well as supporting the strategic and programmatic development of ICLEI Europe in this field. Vasileios has extensive experience in stakeholder engagement, co-creation, capacity building, climate assessment methodologies and urban resilience planning and monitoring. He is also involved in standardization activities at EU and ISO level.

Veronica Rebollo

Project OFFICER - Sustainable Resources, Climate and Resilience, ICLEI Europe

Veronica joined the Sustainable Resources, Climate and Resilience team at ICLEI-Europe in September 2017, and is currently involved in projects and activities on urban adaptation, resilience and biodiversity, having participated in HORIZON2020 projects such as RESIN, Smart Mature Resilience and the EU Pollinators Initiative. With a background in biology and transdiciplinary and international training, she has explored different branches of the environmental conservation sector, ranging from academia to education. She is specialized in biodiversity conservation and sustainable management of natural resources, with a focus on healthy human-nature interactions and sustainable and just urban development.

Aleksandra Kazmierczak

Urban Climate Change Adaptation Expert, European Environment Agency

Aleksandra is a climate adaptation expert at the European Environment Agency, specialising in urban and social aspects of adaptation. Aleksandra coordinates assessment reports and map viewers in the fields of urban climate change adaptation and environmental health inequalities. She has worked in the field of climate change adaptation for over a decade and has background in geography and spatial planning.