I am co-founder and senior researcher at the Environmental Social Science Research Group (ESSRG), a small non-profit research company based in Budapest, Hungary. I served as vice president of the European Society for Ecological Economics between 2018-2021. I was contributing to various assessments of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) between 2014-2022 as lead author and coordinating lead author. My main research areas include the deliberative and socio-cultural valuation of nature, the institutional analysis of food system transformations, and the critical appraisal of science-policy-society interactions in biodiversity policy. I love experimenting with creative-interactive methods and strive to co-create knowledge across knowledge domains. 

In recent years ecological economics has attracted a particularly vivid and diverse community. Still, unequal power relations persist, making collaboration across cultures, regions, gender, and age difficult. Running for ISEE president as an Eastern European woman, who works at a non-profit instead of a renowned university, and who spent her entire life in her home country, takes me out of my comfort zone. At the same time, it imparts a sense of offering genuine value to the community through a form of leadership rooted in care, collaboration, and creativity.

If elected as ISEE president, I will work to further develop a culture of care within ISEE which is mindful of social vulnerabilities and gives more room to young ecological economists., I will foster collaboration among the regional societies and between ecological economics and other disciplines, because situated knowledge, cross-cultural understanding, and cross-disciplinary learning are equally important in uncertain times. I will build on existing initiatives of ISEE to make it more engaging, and will advocate for creative, arts-based, and experimental approaches to be used in online and in-person events, because joy activates our inner strengths and motivation.