Laura Tuominen (Doctoral Candidate)

I`m one of the two doctoral students working in this project studying sustainable management of natural resources and human cooperative behaviour. Broad problems considering natural resources should be understood in an ample way to be able to find sound solutions. I am especially fascinated how small self-organized groups are able to find creative and flexible ways to control, share and take care of local natural resources. I am excited to find out how different resource systems function and how factors from evolutionary biology and social sciences are able to explain differences between groups managing a local resource.

I did my bachelor’s and master’s degree at the University of Jyväskylä Ecology and evolutionary biology as my major subject.

e-mail: laura.s.tuominen@utu.fi
office phone number: +358 29 450 4246

Douglas Richmond (Doctoral Candidate)

I’m a doctoral student working on the topic of the evolutionary and social factors that influence sustainable natural resource management. The project involves the incorporation of many fascinating topics from different disciplines, such as evolutionary biology, social science, ecology, and economics. I am interested in the ways that evolved human behaviours relating to chore concepts such as survival and social behaviour affect the way that resources are managed today, as well as how cultural and social evolution affect our perception of natural resources and their influence on how resources are utilised or protected.

I did my bachelor’s degree in Biology at the University of Nottingham, and my master’s in Nature Management at the University of Copenhagen.

e-mail: douglas.richmond at utu.fi

Jon Brommer (Associate Professor at University of Turku).

I am an evolutionary ecologist, fascinated by the role of evolution in shaping the natural world around us. As a biologist, I see many biological factors driving cooperation in nature. My interest in the LuHa project on Evolution and Cooperation in natural resource management is primarily a desire to test if these biological forces known to drive cooperation in nature play also a role in human societal interactions.

Timo Vuorisalo is Senior Lecturer of Environmental Science at the University of Turku, Finland, since 1992. His PhD in ecological zoology is from the University of Turku in 1989. In 1989-1990 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Indiana University, Bloomington, and before that a Research Assistant of the Academy in Finland. Vuorisalo has written many papers on evolutionary ecology, urban ecology, and environmental history. He has co-edited several books, including Life History Evolution in Plants (Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, 1999, with Pia Mutikainen), The Long Shadows. A global environmental history of the Second World War (Oregon State University Press, Corvallis, 2017, with Simo Laakkonen and Richard Tucker), and The Resilient City in World War II. Urban Environmental Histories (Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2019, with Simo Laakkonen, John McNeill and Richard Tucker).

Heikki Helanterä

I am interested in social evolution in all its forms. My main research topics have been behavior, genetics and evolutionary ecology of ants, and theoretical and conceptual aspects of social evolution. I find expanding the same themes to human natural resource use problems a very exciting prospect!

I am an associate professor (tenure track) at the University of Oulu, Ecology and Genetics research unit.

Sosiaalinen evoluutio kiinnostaa minua kaikissa muodoissaan. Tutkimukseni ovat keskittyneet muurahaisten käyttäytymiseen, genetiikkaan ja evoluutioekologiaan sekä sosiaalisen evoluution teoreettisiin ja filosofisiin puoliin. Ihmisten luonnonvarojen käytön tutkimus on minulle uusi ja kiehtova kohde samojen teemojen parissa.

Toimin yliopistotutkijana (tenure track) Oulun yliopiston Ekologian ja genetiikan tutkimusyksikössä.

Lauri Rapeli

I study the political behavior of both ordinary citizens and societal elites, mainly using various types of survey data. LuHa offers a great opportunity to test and examine political behavior patterns in a slightly different context. I believe the study of political behavior has a lot to learn from ecological and biological approaches and LuHa will help bring these two disciplines together.

I am the research director of the Social Science Research Institute at Åbo Akademi University.

Patrik Karell

My main research interest deals with evolutionary ecology of wild (bird) populations, but recently I have become interested also in more applied and interdisciplinary questions concerning sustainability issues in natural resource management and impacts of environmental quality on society. The approach in the LuHa project bridges my research interests in a very exciting way as it combines evolutionary and social scientific approaches to answer topical questions in natural resource management: how can humans cooperate and manage common resources in a sustainable way?

I am an Academy Research Fellow at Novia University of Applied Sciences.