Jennifer Hennenfeind, a PhD student from our group, has just spent the summer at IIASA answering this question.
Every summer since 1977, around 50 PhD students from around the globe are selected to participate in the prestigious Young Scientists Summer Programme (YSSP) at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg near Vienna. There they conduct research on the most pressing challenges of our time. Jen has just returned from an intensive three months as one of the 52 YSSPers of this year’s cohort.
Mentored by Roman Hoffmann and Sofia Badini from the Population and Just Societies (POPJUS) programme, she investigated whether ecosystem intactness affects within-country migration, and whether it conditions the well-known impacts of drought on within-country migration. Jen estimated these effects with fixed-effects models on migration flows between 722 regions in 35 countries, covering 1992 to 2017.
“The YSSP was a unique experience and a lot of work got done: new methods learned, new angles and perspectives gained, and constant exchange among 50 systems thinkers. A very valuable part of my PhD.”
She is currently writing up her findings, which will be submitted later this year. Stay tuned for more information.
