Research Director, Nordlandsforskning - Nordlandzbr /> Research Institute, Bodø, Norway
Professor, University of Nordland
Professor Grete K. Hovelsrud is an anthropologist with a PhD from Brandeis University in Massachusetts, USA. She is Research Director/Research Professor at Nordlandsforskning (Nordland Research Institute) and Professor at the Unviersity of Nordland in Bodø, Norway. She is the Vice-President of the Norwegian Scientific Academy for Polar Research, Member of the Research Board, Division on Energy Resources and the Environment at the Research Council of Norway, and Lead Author of Arctic Human Development Report, Arctic Resilience Report, and Adaptive Actions for a Changing Arctic. She was a Lead Author and a Contributing Author to the IPCC Fifth Assessement Report (AR5), Member of the ICSU/WMO International Polar Year (IPY) 2007-2008 Joint Committe.
Grete's work focuses on interdisciplinary studies on vulnerability and adaption to climate change, resilience and adaptive capacity of coupled social-ecological systems, and on the transformation of society in the context of climatic and societal change.
With her backgruond as an anthropologist with extensive fieldwork experience from many parts of the Arctic, she brings the need for a bottom up approach to studying societal transformation. She considers the local context as critical starting point for understanding impacts, transitions and change, and continues to conduct fieldwork in Arctic communities in parallel with linking the results to national and international processes. She currently leads a number of major research projects taking place in the northern regions.