We Are Part of the Landscape: Prof. Adrienne Grêt-Regamey, Environmental Scientist

Prof. Grêt-Regamey conducting fieldwork in Madagascar.

As the Chair of Planning Landscape and Urban Systems (PLUS) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH), Prof. Adrienne Grêt-Regamey leads research into how humans shape landscapes, and vice versa. Earlier this month, Prof. Grêt-Regamey and coauthor Bettina Weibel published Global assessment of mountain ecosystem services using earth observation data in the journal Ecosystem Services. They wanted to understand how mountains, as “sensitive social-ecological systems” and “sentinels of global change,” provide insights into “the effects of land use and population change on ecosystem services across the world.”

Grêt-Regamey and Weibel (2020) confirmed their hypothesis that “mountains are hotspots of ecosystem services provision.” Lower-elevation mountains, however, are under great pressure from the growing population living in the lowlands. Demand for ecosystem services like food and water exceeds local availability in mountain ranges worldwide. Their results “highlight the need for action at global and local scales in terms of land use management.”

Prof. Grêt-Regamey aims to “understand how to secure the long-term functioning of such socio-ecological systems.” She compares landscape planning to a doctor advising a patient, suggesting positive interventions to ensure a healthier future. Like doctors, landscape planners must think holistically: as people, “we are part of the landscape,” not separate from it.

Prof. Grêt-Regamey with colleagues in the Swiss Alps.

After graduating from university in Switzerland, Prof. Grêt-Regamey worked in natural resource damage assessment in the United States. There, she witnessed shocking human impacts on the environment, from “mines changing the color of rivers” to birds dying en masse. Her desire to compensate for such injuries inspired her to obtain her own funding for her Ph.D. research on ecosystem services in mountainous areas.

Prof. Grêt-Regamey cites passion and endurance as the skills most critical to scientific success. Systems thinking and math are also important, as well as a willingness to learn and adapt. She encourages her students to “listen to themselves” and strives to create a supportive environment for them. In turn, her research group is her “biggest motivator.” She considers it an honor to collaborate with so many young, smart people. “Seeing students become colleagues” is one of the most rewarding parts of her work.

Sketches describing Prof. Grêt-Regamey’s management style for the Art of Leadership Award (ALEA) from ETH Zurich, for which she was a finalist in 2018: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBpoG01kQn4&list=PLI5qMeij3ipPurLtH6SUSK8CT2eR99Lru&index=23.

Prof. Grêt-Regamey’s research group collects data creatively, e.g., using human body sensors to measure physical reactions to changes in virtual environments. They use drones and recording equipment to visualize and auralize landscapes. On the cognitive side, they collect data sensed passively (by smartphones and social networks, as opposed to by scientific instruments). Prof. Grêt-Regamey finds that “the acceptance of new infrastructures in the landscape is highly related to affective decisions.” The construction of a windfarm, for example, is not a straightforward energy issue, but a matter of “values, beliefs, and norms.”

Prof. Grêt-Regamey using a virtual reality (VR) headset to explore a virtual landscape.

A virtual landscape in Prof. Grêt-Regamey’s landscape visualization lab at ETH Zurich.

In future research, Prof. Grêt-Regamey will continue to explore the overlap between emotions and environment. She also wants to understand transformation of vulnerable landscapes towards sustainability, for example, of new spaces under growing land claims that result from diminishing snow and ice cover. For the field of landscape planning as a whole, she predicts a shift from “planning landscapes” to “considering landscapes as emerging.” Planners will have to create the right boundary conditions (constraints) within which sustainable landscape development can emerge. Making “important decisions related to land use and land management” will require “immense mutual trust between science and practice.” While “we are far from being there,” her research can help build this trust, like that among concerned doctors and motivated patients.

*Thank you to Prof. Adrienne Grêt-Regamey for sharing her story, and images, with 500WS Bern-Fribourg. Click here to read her recent paper.

Better Living Through Chemistry: Prof. Francesca Paradisi, Chemist

Prof. Francesca Paradisi still remembers the peculiar but not unpleasant smell of her mother’s chemistry lab at the University of Bologna in Italy. As a professor at the University of Bern, she now brings her children to her own chemistry lab. Creative, intuitive, sustainable science is a family tradition.

Thanks to her mother, Prof. Paradisi was always interested in chemistry. She says she “should have been a medical doctor,” but lacked the dispassionate temperament it required. She knew she wanted to do research, and an excellent high school professor confirmed her preference for chemistry. After earning her PhD in Italy, she joined a biochemistry research group in Ireland as a postdoctoral fellow.

Prof. Paradisi in her chemistry lab at the University of Bern.

Prof. Paradisi’s postdoc supervisor provided a safety net for her to explore her own ideas, and modeled her cherished values of directness, objectivity, and perseverance. He also helped her define her niche between biology and chemistry. Learning techniques from scratch was not easy, and true interdisciplinarity demands “sufficient understanding to ask the right questions.” While it takes time to learn each other’s vocabulary—what biologists call enzymes, chemists call biocatalysts—bridging the gap between disciplines leads to uncommon skills and unprecedented discoveries.

Today, Prof. Paradisi works at her “dream job” in an “ideal scientific environment.” She leads a group of “different backgrounds: biochemists, chemists, chemical engineers, pharmacists, and bioinformaticians.” The Paradisi Research team produces enzymes: proteins that accelerate chemical reactions. They immobilize the enzymes on resins, ready for chemists to “spoon into” reactions, such as those used to produce pharmaceuticals. Their research has wide-ranging applications, from wine production to anti-cancer medication.

A graphical abstract of a recent Paradisi Research publication likens enzymes accelerating a chemical reaction to a gondola accelerating the journey to a mountaintop. (Roura Padrosa, Benítez-Mateos, Calvey, and Paradisi, 2020: https://doi.org/10.1039/D0GC01817A)

Prof. Paradisi’s idea at the end of the rainbow is to produce extremely portable, versatile pharmaceutical laboratories, with enzymes packed into a column reactor that can “fit in the palm of your hand.” This modest size has tremendous implications: for example, these hand-held labs would permit the life-saving production of anesthetics and antibiotics on-demand and on-site in war zones. Pursuing this goal requires innovation. Early on, her team used an aquarium pump to help reagents flow from a beaker into a column reactor. Now, they are aiming at 3D-printing specific enzyme-packed shapes for faster reactions.

In addition to its potentially life-saving applications, Prof. Paradisi finds the interpersonal aspects of her work rewarding. She wants her team to be good people first, good scientists second: “You can always make a scientist out of a good person, but you can not make a good person out of a good scientist” if the scientist is not a good person already. She also enjoys the moments of revelation when she can help students grasp new concepts: “this penny drop that you see is amazing.” She sees teaching as a collaborative quest: the “best reward” is helping students grow into scientists who are “confident…in their own individual strengths.”

Helping build students’ confidence reflects Dr. Paradisi’s own journey. For a long time, she thought she had not encountered any obstacles as a woman in STEM. An evidence-based lecture on inequality in chemistry made her question some of her experiences in retrospect. For example, why did male colleagues always ask her to take the minutes in meetings? She realized that sexism causes self-doubt to accumulate, and can make a scientist miss potential opportunities, e.g., by hesitating to apply for a research grant. Now that she is more aware of these types of issues, she feels better equipped to address any potential impact on her own work.

The overlap between biology and chemistry evolves constantly. Prof. Paradisi envisions that her field will continue to incorporate ever more machine learning, which will result in increased self-optimization and sustainability of flow reaction systems like hers. These small column reactors are the “building blocks” of a better future.

*Thank you to Prof. Francesca Paradisi for sharing her story with 500WS Bern-Fribourg. Click here to find out more about her experience.

Gabrielle Vance

M.Sc. Geology