Luisa Gensch
| Department | IMPRS |
| Group | IMPRS doctoral candidate |
| Position | Phd Candidate |
| phone | +49 40 42838-5744 |
| luisa.gensch@mpimet.mpg.de | |
| Room | GB 208.1 |
I am doing my PhD at the Graduate School IMPRS-ESM of the Max Planck Institute of Meterology at the University of Hamburg since March 2023. My research area is sustainable landuse, where I use economic modeling to examine possible sustainable future scenarios for agriculture in Europe. I am supervised by Uwe Schneider and Kerstin Jantke.
In the first semesters of my bachelor studies, I got to know the fascinating world and language of mathematics. However, I quickly realized that I would like to apply my knowledge and analytical skills elsewhere, for something that really excites me. I finally found my passion of climate science during the master's program Integrated Climate System Science at the University of Hamburg. I was particularly interested in the interface between natural science and social science perspectives: What narratives do we need to get people to act on climate change? How can we guide consumption with economic tools? How do we price the use of resources more fairly?
In my master's thesis, I specifically addressed one of these questions: How would agriculture in Europe change if we introduced a pesticide tax? What would be the consequences for land distribution and commodity prices? To pursue this thought experiment, I built a model of the agricultural sector in which I first modeled the baseline situation and then introduced a tax on pesticide use.
I am also using this agricultural sector model now in my PhD. The overarching question here is how agricultural land use and production can be made more sustainable, for example by internalizing external pesticide costs, but also how our consumption can become more sustainable. Here, too, an environmental or meat tax are conceivable. In this way, I can also link my interest in nutrition and health with my doctoral work.
Since 2023
PhD at the IMPRS-ESM of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology and the University of Hamburg
2020 - 2023
M.Sc. Integrated Climate System Science at the University of Hamburg
including Erasmus semester at the Utrecht Universiteit, Netherlands
2016 - 2020
B.Sc. Mathematics at the University of Göttingen
including Erasmus year at the Università di Bologna, Italy
Work experience
09/2021 - 02/2023
Research Assistant at FNU at University of Hamburg, pesticide externality accounting
02/2021 - 08/2021
Student Assistent for Amit Basukala, data preparation and visualization of regional climate model data (CORDEX)
08/2017 - 06/2020
Student Assistent for tutoring preparatory courses, Linear Algebra and Statistics courses
Student Assistent for International Master Students coordination team
- Gensch, L., Jantke, K., Rasche, L., & Schneider, U. A. (2024). Pesticide risk assessment in European agriculture: Distribution patterns, ban-substitution effects and regulatory implications. Environmental Pollution (348). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envpol.2024.123836