At the first 2020´s CSRio seminar, we welcomed the researcher Ebba Brink, who presented the theme “From disaster risk reduction to ecosystem-based adaptation in favelas: The interdisciplinary journey of an engineer-turned-sustainability scientist”. Her approach of sustainability science is from a perspective of climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction, sharing experiences from her most recent work around the world, including an experimental project in Rocinha, Rio de Janeiro.

Ebba Brink is a visiting research fellow from Sweden, where she works as a postdoctoral researcher at Lund University Centre for Sustainability Studies (LUCSUS). Ebba has a master’s degree in Engineering Mathematics with a focus on Risk Management, and a PhD in Sustainability Science, both from Lund University. Her research today occupies the interdisciplinary social sciences and focuses on the roles of people and nature in the governance of urban climate risk. Since uncovering and addressing root causes of risk and vulnerability requires working across traditional academic disciplines and the science/society-divide, she is also interested in inter-/transdisciplinary, participatory and reflexive approaches to science. In her project “Where the Favela meets the Forest” (favelAdapt), she will examine how and to what extent urban EbA can promote the interests of the urban poor and address root causes of people’s exposure to risk, while also supporting environmental values. A more comprehensive bio is found on http://www.lucsus.lu.se/ebba-brink.