People of ICEBERG – Thora Herrmann, the Project Scientific Coordinator

Throughout the ICEBERG project, we will introduce the people working on the project. In our first personnel introduction, ICEBERG’s Principal Investigator and Scientific Coordinator, Thora Herrmann, introduces herself and shares what drives her involvement in ICEBERG.

I am Professor Thora Herrmann, the Project Scientific Coordinator of ICEBERG. As Principal Investigator and Scientific Coordinator of ICEBERG, I co-lead our research project on ocean and coastal pollution, developing governance and resilience strategies with Arctic communities. I also co-lead Work Package 2 on risk assessment and local resilience strategies for ecosystems and communities.

This involves working closely with communities in Svalbard, Iceland, and Greenland to understand and address the impacts of marine and coastal pollution. Together, we are monitoring environmental changes, gathering local insights on pollution risks and vulnerabilities, and assessing how these affect livelihoods, culture, health, and overall well-being. Together, we are developing strategies that strengthen resilience against pollution that are grounded in Indigenous and local knowledge and tailored to each community’s needs.

“I appreciate our project’s commitment to diverse knowledge systems”

I have a background in cultural geography and work at the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Oulu. With over 15 years of experience collaborating with First Nations, Inuit, and Sami communities, I have been involved in projects on human-environment interactions, community-based monitoring, and biocultural conservation.

I am excited to be part of ICEBERG because of its interdisciplinary nature: bridging participatory, social, natural, and health sciences with technology and the arts. I appreciate our project’s commitment to diverse knowledge systems—Indigenous, Western, and local—to strengthen community and ecosystem resilience in Greenland, Iceland, and Svalbard.

What drives me is also our focus on sustainable, long-term solutions to marine pollution in the Arctic that are technically sound, locally relevant, and socially just.

“I value the opportunities ICEBERG brings to collaborate with communities, scientists, and policymakers”

Finally, I value the opportunities ICEBERG brings to collaborate with communities, scientists, and policymakers in developing gender-inclusive, decolonial approaches that address the full spectrum of human-environment interactions at the Arctic ocean-coast-land interface.

I am passionate about art-based methodologies, such as community filmmaking, photovoice and interactive mapping. For example, I am currently involved in the NUNA programme, where young Inuit students in Nunavik (Canada) create short films to express what “nuna” (the land) means to them, portraying their daily lives and connections with the environment.

I am also leading the EU-Horizon project BIRGEJUPMI (2025-2027) which centers on community engagement and environmental decision-making in Arctic coastal regions that is based on human-coastscapes relationalities.