Team

Mohammad Gharesifard

Principle investigator

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Dr. Mohammad Gharesifard is an assistant professor of citizen science at the Faculty of Science and Engineering, University of Groningen (RUG). He is an expert in theory and applications of citizen science and holds a joint PhD degree from TU-Delft and IHE Delft on technology-enabled public participation for water and environmental management. Since 2014, he has been involved in conceptual and empirical research in the field of citizen science both inside and outside of academia and in the context of large-scale national and EU-funded projects. The main focus of his research is on the applications and challenges of citizen science projects, and particularly how stakeholder engagement and use of Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) can translate into changes in existing actor relationships, learning, and decision making across different levels of society and governance. He participates in Public Engagement pillar of the RUG's Open Science Programme, and serves as a member of the NWO Open Science NL Advisory Panel on Citizen Science and Societal Engagement.

Marit Bogert

Postdoc researcher

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Dr. Marit Bogert is a postdoc researcher in citizen science at the Gharesifard-group. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Biology and a Master's degree in Ecology & Evolution with a specialization in Science Communication. She has multiple years of experience as a citizen science project manager and educational developer at TU Delft Science Centre, while also getting her PhD at VU Amsterdam. Her PhD thesis focussed on climate change communication, systems thinking and social ecology. She is a member of the Public Engagement pillar of the RUG's Open Science Programme.

Mariana Inglez

Visiting Postdoc researcher

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Mariana Inglez is a postdoc researcher in Science Communication at the Bioscience Institute (University of São Paulo, Brazil) and a visiting researcher in the Gharesifard group. She is currently studying decolonial and participatory approaches to conserving biocultural heritage in a coastal municipality of São Paulo State (Itanhaém), as well as the integration of Citizen Science into public policy.

Mariana holds a PhD in Sciences from the University of São Paulo, specializing in Bioanthropology. Her thesis explored how environment, health, and changing food systems are linked to public policies and economic aspects, with a focus on traditional communities, conservation, and sociobiodiversity through a biocultural lens. In recent years, she has researched nutritional transition and food insecurity in the Amazon, also coordinating multimedia science communication projects.

Walidah Sholilah

PhD student

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Walidah holds a Bachelor's degree in Mathematics and a Master's in Computer Science from IPB University (Indonesia), where she is also a lecturer in the Computer Engineering Technology program, focusing on agricultural automation. As a PhD candidate at RUG, her research centers on developing a Participatory Water Quality Monitoring System for ornamental fish farming in Indonesia. This project integrates citizen science, IoT, and machine learning algorithms to help fish farmers efficiently maintain water quality. She is passionate about leveraging technology for sustainability in aquaculture and agriculture.  

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Marit is a PhD candidate specializing in the development of sustainability education. In her research, she uses virtual reality to explore how secondary school students can learn about the perspectives of people around the world who are affected by climate change. 

Before starting her PhD, Marit worked for five years as a secondary school history teacher. During her master’s program, she focused on integrating sustainability into the history curriculum. After completing her degree, she worked as a policymaker for curriculum innovation at Utrecht University. She is now working fulltime on her PhD-research at the University of Groningen. Marit is passionate about her work and she strongly believes that education plays a crucial role to make a sustainable transition in society. 

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Shivam is a PhD Candidate at the Faculty of Behavioral and Social Sciences, University of Groningen. His research attempts to develop a set of agent based models of realistic behaviour in cascading disasters with citizen science for the province of Groningen. This project integrates behavioral theory into agent-based simulations to explore how cascading, interconnected climate-related disasters could unfold in Groningen and how different mitigation measures might change their trajectories. It also uses participatory citizen science to incorporate local knowledge and co-develop community-driven strategies for disaster resilience. 

Shivam has an interdisciplinary education consisting of training in communications, sociology and mathematics and completed his Bachelors from Mumbai University and Masters from Charles University in Prague. His research interests include social simulation models, opinion dynamics and agent based modelling of disasters."

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Anne obtained his bachelor’s in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Groningen in 2023. Right after he started his master's programme in Science, Education, and Communication at the RUG. In October 2025, he joined the research group as a Student Assistant to work with Prof. Gharisefard on the Up-sTEAm project. In a rapidly changing world, there is a growing need for exciting ways to revolutionize education. In this project, he combines his passion for raising a new generation of high school students with his commitment to enabling prospective teachers to implement non-formal education.