Scientific Leader of the Conference
I am Professor of Sustainable Design at the Department of Design, Aalto University. I'm a sustainability scientist and a design researcher, developing a teaching and research portfolio for imagining sustainable, equitable and resilient future systems through various approaches in design research and developing interventions to achieve these proposals. My work is concerned with socio-technical and socio-ecological systems with a particular focus on production-consumption systems and cities. I am a global pioneer in the emerging area of design for sustainability transitions, developing theories and methods/tools for design practice dealing with sustainability transitions.
I have worked as a researcher, lecturer and consultant in Australia, New Zealand and Turkey before moving to Helsinki.
Scientific Leader of the Conference
I started as the Director of HELSUS, Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science, in January this year. I am inspired by the spirit of HELSUS and the intellectual capital in the institute. In collaboration with all HELSUS members, I hope to find ways to help societies in making sustainability transitions, and making them fast.
My background is in ecology and in inter- and transdisciplinary research. For example, I have studied the urban forest dynamics in combination with the user perspective to facilitate sustainable urban planning and forestry. I have also lead a project focusing on the conservation of species under climate change, with ethical, legal and biological perspectives, in order to revise conservation thinking in response to climate change. Recently, my research emphasis has been in building-integrated vegetation as a means to adapt to climate change and to counteract loss of biodiversity (check e.g. this Podcast in Finnish: Luonnon monimuotoisuus rakennuksessa). I am constantly looking for win-win solutions where humans and other species strive together. As a result, I have published with aestheticians, conservation scientists, economists, engineers, legal scholars, philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, zoologists, and practitioners.
Jussi Impiö - Leader of the Organising Committee
Jasmin Järvinen - Communication and coordination of the conference
Linda Lammensalo - Communication and coordination of the conference
Tiia Kolari - Communication and coordination of the conference
Eero Ketola - Communication and coordination of the conference
If you have questions relating to the conference please contact: ssd-conference@helsinki.fi