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Maximilian Feichtner studied Spanish, political science, and social sciences in Freiburg, Cape Town, and Bangkok. He participated in the Global Studies Programme and received a joint MA in social sciences from the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg and the University of Cape Town in July 2016. Maximilian joined the DFG Emmy Noether Research Group “Hazardous Travels: Ghost Acres and the Global Waste Economy” at the Rachel Carson Center in Munich in April 2017. In 2021, he finished his PhD thesis with the title “The Metamorphosis of the Amazon: Oilmen, Hazardous Waste, and the Ecuadorean Rainforest in the 20th Century.” You can learn more about his project here.

Jonas Stuck is a PhD student at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Munich, and part of the DFG Emmy Noether Research Group “Hazardous Travels: Ghost Acres and the Global Waste Economy.” He is working on the export of hazardous waste from West Germany to its East German neighbor during the Cold War. His research interests include the international trade of hazardous waste, the history of environmental citizen movements, and the intersection of science communication with the arts and academia. He graduated with an MA in Contemporary History from the Humboldt University Berlin, the Sciences Po Lyon and the Université Lumière Lyon 2. You can learn more about his project here.

Ayushi Dhawan is currently undertaking a PhD in Environmental Humanities at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. She is a part of the DFG Emmy-Noether Research Group “Hazardous Travels: Ghost Acres and the Global Waste Economy.” With a background in history, her research focuses on the Alang Shipbreaking Industry in Gujarat, 1983–2012. She completed her BA Hons. and MA in History from the University of Delhi in 2014, before joining the foundation year at the University of Leiden in 2014–2015, supported by an ENCOMPASS Scholarship. Subsequently, she earned her research master’s degree in colonial and global history in 2017. She has written various blog posts for Seeing the Woods, Kunsthal Extra City #Cahier 5, and Environmental History Now. Learn more about here research project here.

Christina Lennartz is currently pursuing her Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration at the Ludwig-Maximilians University. Before commencing her studies in 2017, she spent a year working on organic farms in Southern France, California, and Oregon, which sparked her initial interest in environmentalism and sustainability. Following her travels, she worked in the Berlin start-up scene and media industry as an editor as well as a project, content and social media media manager. She joined the DFG Emmy-Noether Research Group “Hazardous Travels: Ghost Acres and the Global Waste Economy” as a research assistant in September 2018.

Dr. Simone M. Müller is Project Director and Principal Investigator of the DFG Emmy Noether Research Group “Hazardous Travels: Ghost Acres and the Global Waste Economy” at the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society, Munich. She works at the intersection of globalization studies, economic and social history, and environmental humanities. Her research interests range from the international trade in hazardous waste material and the intellectual history of economic ecological thinking, to green city concepts and the study of ocean space. She has received numerous awards and fellowships, among them from the Smithsonian Institution, the Science History Institute, and the University of Pennsylvania. She is a member of the Young ZiF (Center for Interdisciplinary Research) of the University of Bielefeld and in 2017 was nominated as one of the leading female academics in her field by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Bosch Foundation. You can learn more about her research here.