About us

CultEs has an interdiciplinary and international team with researchers that cover a range of skills to analyse ecosystem management in Norway. CultEs members have experience from different countries (e.g. circumpolar countries, North America, Poland, and Australia), providing the team with a broad perspective of research.


Vera Hausner

Project leader
The Arctic University of Norway

The project leader has considerable experience from interdisciplinary and international collaborations in the NCR funded project TUNDRA (Russia, Canada, Norway and Alaska), which included a step-wise design to integrate ecology, economy and environmental governance in ecosystem services research. Vera Hausner has worked with PPGIS mapping in communities on the Varanger peninsula and with reindeer herders in the project Ecosystem Finnmark.


Greg Brown

University of Queensland

Greg Brown is experienced in the field of nature management and the involvement of the public in management issues. He will be in charge of the PPGIS and spatial planning.


Per Fauchald

Norwegian Institute for Nature Research (NINA)

Per Fauchald will work with spatial modelling, ecosystem ecology and integrative analyses. He has experience with spatial and statistical modelling and the design of ecological studies.


Christopher Monz

Utah State University

Christopher Monz will analyze recreational and tourism impacts and disturbances. He will contribute to the modelling and design of the work packages, in addition to developing the online course.


Lennart Nilsen

The Arctic University of Norway

Lennart Nilsen will work with GIS mapping, plant biodiversity and functional groups. He has built up the GIS databases in the department of biosciences, fishery and economics at the Arctic University of Norway, and has experience with remote sensing.


Alma Thuestad

Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU)

Alma Thuestad will work on GIS databases and mapping of human uses. She is experienced in remote sensing.


Sigrid Engen

The Arctic University of Norway

Sigrid has a bachelor in biology and a master in ecology, both from the Arctic University of Norway. After finishing her master in 2010 she worked at the Norwegian Polar Institute for a few years and then at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research. In CultEs Sigrid will work with the recent decentralization of management responsibility of Norwegian protected areas through her PhD: “Reconciling local use and national conservation objectives in protected areas: examining the performance of community-based conservation using the ecosystem services approach” (funded by NRC).


Eiliv Lægreid

The Arctic University of Norway

Eiliv Lægreid is a research assistant employed in LINKAGE, a project that has some overlap with CultEs. Within the frame of CultEs his work has mostly been related to identifying suitable study areas and working on the recruitment plan for participants.


Lorena MuÑoz

The Arctic University of Norway

Lorena finished a bachelor degree in environmental sciences at The University of Basque County (Spain). She moved to Norway to complete a master degree in biology at the Arctic University of Norway, consisting of analyses of management plans in alpine zones.

Recently Lorena has started working on her PhD about nature based tourism in protected areas entitled “Nature based tourism in protected areas: tradeoffs and synergies among cultural ecosystem services” (funded by The Arctic University of Norway). The PhD will address the important challenges following increased nature based tourism in protected areas.