Julen Gonzalez-Redin (see his personal website here [2]) is native to San Sebastian, Spain, and completed a BSc Honours in Environmental Sciences in 2011 at the University of the Basque Country, Spain.
From 2011 to 2013, Julen worked as a Research Assistant in the Ecological Sciences group at the James Hutton Institute and subsequently as an Environmental Consultant at ‘ENVIROS, s.r.o.’ [3], Prague, Czech Republic. In August 2014, Julen completed a Master’s Degree by Research in Sustainable Development at the University of St Andrews, with a strong focus on critical approaches to sustainability and ecosystem services modelling.
In October 2014 Julen joined the Information and Computational Sciences (ICS) [4] group at the James Hutton Institute to undertake a PhD in Sustainable Development and Agent-based Modelling, entitled “Sustainable Development - Why Is It Not Delivering On Its Promises?”
Julen specializes in interdisciplinary approaches towards sustainability issues, engaging with natural, social and economic scientists. He develops models to explore and provide answers regarding the socio-economic and environmental factors that may be de-coupling the economic and environmental systems, exploring potential pathways for a more sustainable development of socio-ecological systems. The modelling approaches used by Julen include Agent-based Modelling (ABM) and (spatial) Bayesian Belief Networks (BBN).
Julen is currently involved in research studying (1) the extent debt-based economies enhance unsustainable use of natural resources; (2) the impact of the current debt-driven palm oil industry in Indonesia on biodiversity and different ecosystem services; and (3) the extent future land-use scenarios in the Wet Tropics of Australia will affect biodiversity and different ecosystem services.
Prior to joining the James Hutton Institute, Julen received a Leonardo Da Vinci Scholarship (European Commission) to work as a Research Assistant at the James Hutton Institute, under the supervision of Dr Javier Perez-Barberia and Dr Scott Newey [5]. Julen was responsible for the field-work, lab-work and data analysis regarding several ecological projects, where he learned a broad range of survey and sampling methods for mammal, vegetation, soil and insect analysis.
After this one-year period, Julen received a Global Training Scholarship from the Government of the Basque Country, Spain, to work as an Environmental Consultant at ENVIROS, s.r.o [6], Prague, Czech Republic. He was involved in the EU-funded BioRegions Project [7], which had the goal of developing Action Plans to enhance “bioenergy regions” in different rural areas of Europe. Julen engaged with stakeholders and analysed technical information to identify success factors for best practices regarding biomass energy production.
In addition to his research experience, Julen collaborated with the Greek NGO ‘Archelon – The Sea Turtle Society of Greece’ [8] in 2011. He provided on-site support to help conserving marine mammals. His tasks included daily monitoring, data collection and raising awareness through public talks among local communities.
Links:
[1] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5542-0323
[2] http://julengonzalezredin.com/
[3] http://www.enviros.cz/english/company_profile/about_enviros.html
[4] http://www.hutton.ac.uk/research/groups/information-and-computational-sciences
[5] http://www.hutton.ac.uk/staff/scott-newey
[6] http://www.enviros.cz/english/index.html
[7] http://www.bioregions.eu/
[8] http://www.archelon.gr/index_eng.php