2017•10•02     Bonn

Mia Wannewitz. Photo: Aileen Orate for UNU-EHS.

We are thrilled to announce that UNU-EHS research associate Mia Wannewitz has won the 2017 DVAG-Prize for Applied Geography.

Presented every two years, the award is given for outstanding German- and English-language dissertations in the field of geography by the German Association for Geography.

Mia was awarded the prize for her MSc thesis investigating the utility of a sub-national risk index for the Philippines with the help of an expert-based evaluation process. The thesis was supervised by Dr Matthias Garschagen, Head of the VARMAP section at UNU-EHS. After receiving the award on Sunday, she said: “I am hoping that the prize will shed more light on the issue I worked on – the evaluation of the utility of risk assessment tools to guarantee their practical use.”

She recently completed the MSc program Geography of Environmental Risk and Human Security here at UNU-EHS. In the course of her studies, Mia focused on risk and vulnerability assessments as well as on climate change adaptation strategies and their effective implementation.

Mia now works as a research associate for the VARMAP section at UNU-EHS, which focuses on vulnerability assessment, risk management and adaptive planning.

You can read more about Mia’s ongoing work with VARMAP and its specialized projects here.