Leonie Tuitjer completed a multidisciplinary and international degree programme. In 2009, she graduated from the University of Göttingen with a BA in Political Science and English Studies (“Teacher Training” profile). As part of this degree programme, she spent a semester abroad in India (Pune University). She then studied Global Studies – From a European Perspective on the Erasmus Mundus Master's programme with study visits to Austria (University of Vienna), Denmark (Roskilde University) and Australia (Macquarie University). The programme included a variety of courses in political science, sociology, global history and international relations. During her time as a Master's student, she also completed an internship at the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in Vienna. In 2014, Leonie Tuitjer obtained a further Master's degree in social science research methods at Durham University (UK) and subsequently completed her doctorate in human geography there as well. Her Master's degree and dissertation were enabled by a scholarship from the Economic and Social Research Council UK. For her field research, she became a visiting researcher at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok for 6 months. From 2017-2023, Leonie Tuitjer was a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute of Economic and Cultural Geography at Leibniz University Hannover.

How do people perceive socio-ecological crises and how do they cope in acute crisis situations?

The content of Leonie Tuitjer's work can be summarised under one overarching question: How do people perceive socio-ecological crises and how do they cope in acute crisis situations? During her PhD, she approached this question through the context of climate change and a specific flood event in Bangkok, Thailand. She focussed in particular on local patterns of perception (e.g., Buddhist-inspired interpretations of climate change and natural disasters) and ad hoc adaptation strategies of city dwellers to flooding. During her time as a postdoctoral researcher, she intensively investigated the perception of climate change in the European and German population and how the COVID-19 crisis changed the meaning and use of mobility, food and social infrastructures in the city of Hanover. Leonie Tuitjer's work is committed to questions of social justice, has a qualitative methodological orientation and an international focus. In addition to the perception and management of socio-ecological crises, she plans to establish a further research focus at artec, in which she wants to investigate how necessary transformation processes can be shaped socio-ecologically.