Dr. Yvonne Walz holds a Ph.D.in the interdisciplinary field of geographical remote sensing and spatial epidemiology from the University of Würzburg, Germany, which she conducted in close collaboration with the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (STP) in Basel. Thereby, she specialized in spatial risk profiling of human diseases, exemplified for the case of schistosomiasis in West Africa. Her research focus at UNU-EHS is on vulnerability and risk assessment, developing methodological approaches to support the monitoring of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, multi-sectoral perspective on climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction and public health.
Her background in geography, remote sensing and GIS stems from studies in Geography (“Diplom”) at the University Würzburg, Germany, and a correspondence course on Geographical Information Systems and Science (MSc GIS) at the University of Salzburg, Austria. During her work at the University of Würzburg and the WHO Collaborating Centre for Health Promoting Water Management and Risk Communication in Bonn, Dr. Walz has gained seven years of work experience in analyzing socio-ecological systems of environment and human health. At the Centre for Satellite Based Crisis Information (ZKI) at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), she led the health mapping activities within the GMES RESPOND Service Elements of the European Space Agency (ESA), and was involved in crisis intervention and spatial damage assessment. During her work at the Department of Land Information (DLI) in Australia, Dr. Walz conducted research on monitoring of burn severity and the impact of fire management practices in temperate forests of South-Western Australia.
Currently, Dr. Walz is working as Associate Academic Officer in the Environmental Vulnerability & Ecosystem Services section (EVES) section, where she is coordinating UNU-EHS activities in several projects, such as EvIDENz and CLIMAFRI. In addition, she supports the section heads in the application for new research grants, supervises visiting scientists, research/student assistants and interns, and is actively involved in teaching activities of the joint MSc program on Geography of Environmental Risk and Human Security of UNU-EHS and University of Bonn, at the UNU-EHS block course with the Disaster Management, Education and Training Center (DiMTEC) at the University of the Free State (UFS), at UNU-MERIT and at the WASCAL PhD program on Climate Change and Human Security in Lomé, Togo.