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UCFL - TEAM
Our team brings together experts from leading research institutions to collaboratively develop innovative solutions for transforming urban spaces in the face of climate change. This interdisciplinary network spans urban studies, governance, mobility, industry, climate impact research, and citizen participation. Together, we create forward-looking scenarios and strategies for just, sustainable, and climate-adapted urban development. By combining perspectives from spatial planning, social sciences, climate science, and design, we lay the foundation for resilient and livable cities of the future.
MOB | Postdoc Institute of Transportation and Urban Engineering (IVS) Technische Universität Braunschweig www.tu-braunschweig.de/ivs
Dr.-Ing. Lasse Bienzeisler is a postdoctoral researcher and head of the Transport Demand Modeling Group at the Institute of Transport and Urban Engineering at TU Braunschweig (since February 2025). From 2017 to 2025, he worked there as a research associate. He studied Transportation Management (B.Sc., Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences, 2013) and Mobility and Transport (M.Sc., TU Braunschweig, 2016). For his master’s thesis on simulating autonomous vehicles in MATSim, he was awarded the 2016 Hermann Appel Prize for Future Mobility.
Completed projects include: Cross-sectional Recommendations for Overpasses and Underpasses of Rural Paths as well as USEfUL and USEfUL XT. He is currently involved in the regional transport model for the Braunschweig metropolitan area.
KNOW | Research Associate ISU - Institute for Sustainable Urbanism Technische Universität Braunschweig www.spacelab-isu.org
Bhupender Bindal is a research associate at the Institute for Sustainable Urbanism (ISU). He received his master’s degree in Computational Sciences in Engineering from TU Braunschweig, during which he focussed on applied machine learning on microscopic images. He earned his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from Jamia Millia Islamia University, India.
He worked as a student assistant at ISU during the summer semester of 2024 and joined ISU as a research associate in April 2025. His research interests include analyzing geospatial data and applying machine learning to answer research questions pertaining to sustainable urbanisation.
GOV | PhD candidate Academy for Territorial Development in the Leibniz Association (ARL) www.arl-net.de
Nele C. Buchholz is a PhD candidate and scientific associate working for the ARL at the Urban Climate Future Lab. Her research spans socio-ecological transformations, climate justice, climate adaptation governance, human–nature relations, gender, intersectionality and participation. Following her studies, she worked at the nexus Institute for Cooperation Management and Interdisciplinary Research in Berlin (2021–24) and from 2023 to 2024 she was editor-in-chief of Innovation: The European Journal of Social Science Research. From 2018 to 2019 she worked at the "Caring for Nature/s?" project at Leuphana University. She holds an MSc in Human Ecology (Lund University, 2022), an MA in Leadership for Sustainability (Malmö University, 2021) and a BSc in Environmental and Political Sciences (Leuphana University, 2019).
URB | PI, Speaker UCFL Institute for Sustainable Urbanism (ISU) Technische Universität Braunschweig www.spacelab-isu.org
Prof. Dr. Vanessa Miriam Carlow became Professor at Technische Universität Braunschweig in 2012, where she leads the Institute for Sustainable Urbanism (ISU) and the Spatial Analytics and Cross-disciplinary Experimentation Lab (SPACE LAB). Co-speaker of FUTURE CITY since 2015, her work advances tools for sustainable urban development. She co-founded COBE Copenhagen (2005) and COBE Berlin (2012–2020) and since 2021 heads Vanessa Carlow Urbanism Research Architecture. Carlow studied Architecture and Urban Design at TU Berlin and TU Delft, holds an MA and a PhD in strategic planning from the Royal Danish Academy. Her projects have won Golden Lion and a MIPIM Award.
RES | PI Institute for Building Climatology and Energy of Architecture (IBEA) Technische Universität Braunschweig www.tu-braunschweig.de/ibea
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Elisabeth Endres is Ordinaria of Building Technology at TU Braunschweig, where she has led the Institute for Building Climatology and Energy in Architecture since 2019. She earned her Diploma in Architecture at TU Kaiserslautern and TU Munich, then served on TU Munich’s faculty (2004–2018), creating the Energy-Efficient Sustainable Building curriculum and winning the 2010 Teaching Excellence Award. Since 2013 she has been project director—and since 2018 a board member—at Hausladen Ingenieure. Her research addresses passive climate control, CO₂-neutral construction and robust building systems. Endres is a BDA member, Sep Ruf Society board member and sits on Berlin’s monument council and Hamburg’s HafenCity advisory board.
MOB | PI Institute of Transportation and Urban Engineering (IVS) Technische Universität Braunschweig www.tu-braunschweig.de/ivs
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Bernhard Friedrich has directed the Institute for Verkehr und Stadtbauwesen at TU Braunschweig since 2007. From 2000 to 2007, he served as Professor of Road Traffic Planning and Operation at Leibniz University Hannover. He co-founded and led the engineering firm TRANSVER (1995–2000). A graduate of TU München, he earned his Diplom in Civil Engineering in 1990 and his Dr.-Ing. in 1995, where he remained as a research associate until 1995. An active member of acatech, FGSV, ITS Bavaria, EURO Working Group Transportation, DVWG and NFF, he has received the Max-Erich Feuchtinger and Bruno Wehner Medal, the BMW Scientific Award and a EURO operations research laureate prize.
SYM | PhD candidate Institute of Machine Tools and Production Technology (IWF) Technische Universität Braunschweig www.tu-braunschweig.de/iwf
Philipp Grimmel, is a research associate at the Institute for Werkzeugmaschinen und Fertigungstechnik, TU Braunschweig. His work spans urban production systems, industrial symbiosis and semantic-web technologies for data integration. He leads the ISUrF-Hub project, developing digital platforms to optimize resource flows and circular processes in urban contexts. In addition to supervising student research, Grimmel co-lectures on research & innovation management and operations management, fostering hands-on learning in sustainable manufacturing and service systems. His interdisciplinary approach advances resilient, data-driven frameworks for sustainable urban infrastructures.
RES | PhD candidate Institute for Building Climatology and Energy of Architecture (IBEA) Technische Universität Braunschweig www.tu-braunschweig.de/ibea
Mathias Hehle is a research associate at the Institute for Building Climatology and Energy in Architecture at TU Braunschweig. He completed a visiting PhD at the University of Florence (2023–2024) and from 2012 to 2019 held roles across Germany’s energy sector: co-leading a solar silicon startup, working in a utility’s energy-market department, assisting the CEO of an energy-contracting firm, and leading corporate development and M&A. Hehle holds master’s-equivalent degrees in industrial engineering from TU Braunschweig/ETH Zurich and in mechanical engineering (energy and process technology) from TU Braunschweig.
SYM | PI Institute of Machine Tools and Production Technology (IWF) Technische Universität Braunschweig www.tu-braunschweig.de/iwf
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Christoph Herrmann is Professor of Sustainable Production and Life Cycle Engineering at TU Braunschweig, where he leads the Institute for Manufacturing Technology and, since 2018, the Fraunhofer IST. Co-leader of the German–Australian “Sustainable Manufacturing and Life Cycle Engineering” group since 2009, he earned his Dr.-Ing. in 2003, habilitated in 2008 and became full professor in 2013. He founded a spin-off (2002–07) developing eco-design tools, served as Scientific Director at KERP Vienna, CEO of the NFF research center and Dean of Mechanical Engineering (2017–19). His award-winning research on resource efficiency and life-cycle management includes over 300 publications. Member of WGP and CIRP.
Lena Holz is a sustainability psychologist and PhD researcher at the Institute for Sustainability Psychology at Leuphana University Lüneburg. She obtained a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Radboud University Nijmegen and a Research Master’s degree in Behavioural and Social Sciences from University of Groningen, both in the Netherlands. Specializing in Environmental Psychology, her master’s thesis focused on climate anxiety as a psychological response to climate change. Within UCFL, her research examines how citizens in urban areas perceive and narrate risks related to climate change.
GOV | PI Academy for Territorial Development in the Leibniz Association (ARL) www.arl-net.de
Katharina Kapitza is the head of the Academic Section "Strategies and Concepts of Spatial Transformation" at the ARL - Academy for Territorial Development in the Leibniz Association in Hanover. She is a sustainability scientist specialised in environmental social sciences, trained in gender studies and qualitative social research. Her research focuses on governance of social-ecological transformation, gender and spatial development, energy transition, climate adaptation and far right environmentalism. She is spokesperson for the working group on gender, sustainability, environment and transformation (GENAU*T) of the German Association for Gender Studies.
GOV | Postdoc Academy for Territorial Development in the Leibniz Association (ARL) www.arl-net.de
Ricardo Kaufer is a political and social scientist, conducting research at the Academy for Spatial Development in the Leibniz Association and teaching at the University of Kassel. He has previously held positions at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research at Bielefeld University, as well as at the universities of Greifswald, Lille, Lüneburg, Göttingen, Vechta, and Hagen. His work and research focus on social-scientific sustainability studies, research on political movements, policy analysis, and theories of the state.
Prof. Dr. Astrid Kause is Juniorprofessorin für Nachhaltigkeitswissenschaft und Psychologie at Leuphana University of Lüneburg. There she leads the Urban Future Climate Lab (UFCL, 2024–2030) project and the IMPETUS4CHANGE project (I4C, 2022–2026), advancing near-term climate prediction and societal transformation. Her interdisciplinary research combines sustainability science, metacognition and climate communication, with recent articles in Personality and Individual Differences, Climatic Change and Science Communication. She has studied public understanding of climate terminology and collective intelligence in science outreach. Kause regularly contributes to media on mental resilience and uncertainty communication in climate discourse and teaches on behavior change and risk perception.
SYM | Co-PI Institute of Machine Tools and Production Technology (IWF) Technische Universität Braunschweig www.tu-braunschweig.de/iwf
Dr.-Ing. Mark Mennenga is Deputy Director of the Institute for Werkzeugmaschinen und Fertigungstechnik and head of the “System of Systems Engineering” division at TU Braunschweig. He also oversees the Lernfabrik training workshop and coordinates research collaborations with Singapore, Japan and India. His research develops methods and tools for engineering sustainable system architectures, data-driven business models, industrial product-service systems, and digitalized remanufacturing and recycling networks, with a focus on industrial symbiosis and collaborative production. He teaches holistic life-cycle management, operations management and work science, and supervises student theses. His recent publications address urban-industrial symbiosis, real-time condition monitoring and eco-effective manufacturing.
URB | Deputy Head Institute for Sustainable Urbanism (ISU) Technische Universität Braunschweig www.spacelab-isu.org
Olaf Mumm, Dipl.-Ing. (Architekt), is Deputy Director and Senior Researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Urbanism (ISU) and its SpACE Lab at TU Braunschweig. With over 15 years at the nexus of urban design, planning and research, he has led interdisciplinary, design-based projects on urbanization patterns, city structures and knowledge-based planning tools. Mumm joined TU Braunschweig in 2014 following roles at Urban INDEX Institute and Bauhaus-Universität Weimar. He holds a Diploma in Architecture and Urban Design from Bauhaus-Universität Weimar and studied sociology at FernUniversität Hagen. His teaching—such as the iSCOR seminar—earned TU Braunschweig’s LehrLEO award in 2018.
URB | General Manager Institute for Sustainable Urbanism (ISU) Technische Universität Braunschweig www.spacelab-isu.org
Esteban Muñoz is a researcher and urban modeler specializing in spatial microsimulation and urban metabolism. With a Dipl.-Ing. (FH) in Architecture, a M.Sc. in Resource Efficiency in Architecture and Planning, and a Ph.D. from HafenCity University Hamburg, he has developed innovative models for urban planning and environmental impact assessment. He served nearly 8 years as a consultant for UNEP, leading projects in circular economy, urban nature, and climate adaptation across the Global South. He co-developed the Circular Jobs Monitor and the SMUM model for simulating urban resource use. Since October 2024, he is General Manager at the Urban Climate Future Lab, TU Braunschweig, where he advances urban sustainability through data-driven policy tools.
MOB | PhD candidate Institute of Transportation and Urban Engineering (IVS) Technische Universität Braunschweig www.tu-braunschweig.de/ivs
Felix Petre holds a Master’s degree in Transportation Engineering from TU Braunschweig, with a thesis on agent-based modeling for the Hannover region. He also studied Aerospace Engineering and earned a Bachelor’s in Industrial Engineering with a focus on satellite-based space debris removal. Felix has experience in traffic planning, infrastructure design, and process optimization through roles at B/M Consult and Volkswagen. He has strong data analysis skills (Python, Pandas) and working knowledge in media and software development. He spent a year in California as part of a student exchange. He speaks German, English, and French.
OPEN | PI, Co-Speaker UCFL Institute of Open Space Planning and Design (IF) Leibniz University Hannover www.freiraum.uni-hannover.de
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Martin Prominski is a Professor of Urban Landscape Development and Head of “Entwerfen urbaner Landschaften” at Leibniz University Hannover (since April 2009). He is Managing Director of the Institute for Freiraumentwicklung and chairs the Landscape Architecture Master’s selection committee. His research focuses on qualifying urban landscapes under climate crisis, design-based research methods and landscape architecture in the Anthropocene. After earning a Diploma in Landscape Planning from TU Berlin (1996) and an MLA from Harvard GSD (1998), he completed his Dr.-Ing. on landscape design (2003). He previously held posts at TU Berlin, Harvard and Hargreaves Associates.
CLIM | PhD candidate Helmholtz-Zentrum hereon GmbH, Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS) www.gerics.de
Riddhima Puri is a doctoral researcher at the Climate Service Center Germany. She holds a Master's in Earth and Environmental Sciences from the École Normale Supérieure Paris, specializing in atmosphere and ocean sciences. Her research interests broadly focus on climate variability, impacts, and communication. Her Master’s thesis focused on how land-use changes and aerosols affect long-term shifts in the Indian monsoon using global climate models. Her latest work as part of an EU project, SUNRISE, explores how climate impacts critical infrastructures. She aims to further integrate climate model data at the regional and local level under the UCFL project.
CLIM | PI Helmholtz-Zentrum hereon GmbH, Climate Service Center Germany (GERICS) www.gerics.de
Dr. Claas Teichmann is a scientist at the Climate Service Center Germany. He studied physics in Göttingen, Lyon and Bremen, then joined the regional climate modeling group at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology. His doctorate examined how megacities affect air quality in South America. He contributes to projects like IMPACT2C (2 °C warming) and supports EURO-CORDEX for high-resolution regional modeling. He helped launch the journal Climate Services, bridging science and practice. His research focuses on climate extremes in low-emission scenarios and on developing modeling chains to quantify uncertainties from global signals to local impacts.
GOV | PI Academy for Territorial Development in the Leibniz Association (ARL) www.arl-net.de
Dr. Barbara Warner (*1969) is a geographer. She completed her doctorate on the topic of experiencing nature and urban nature conservation concepts. Since 2014, she has been a scientific officer at the ARL - Academy for Spatial Development in the Leibniz Association in Hanover and is responsible for the Ecology and Landscape department. Her main topics are the protection of open spaces, sustainable development and climate adaptation
URB | PhD candidate Institute for Sustainable Urbanism (ISU) Technische Universität Braunschweig www.spacelab-isu.org
Ryan Zeringue is a research associate at the Institute for Sustainable Urbanism (ISU) at TU Braunschweig, where he joined in November 2018. He earned an M.A. in Advanced Urbanism from Bauhaus University Weimar and Tongji University Shanghai (2015–2018), with a master’s thesis on street-grid patterns and walkability, and a B.A. in Architecture from Louisiana State University (2010–2015). His work focuses on TOPOI-based analysis of urban and rural regions, interdisciplinary GIS methods, resilience planning, disaster preparedness, spatial analysis and urban design. Before ISU, he served as project lead at MSH Architects in 2018.
Dag-Ole Ziebell is a landscape architect with a strong background in gardening and landscaping, developed through an apprenticeship from 2013 to 2016. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning and a Master’s degree in Landscape Architecture from Leibniz University Hannover. Throughout his academic and professional journey, Dag-Ole Ziebell has gained hands-on experience in design, construction, and urban landscape development. Currently, Dag-Ole Ziebell is pursuing a PhD within the Urban Climate Future Lab and works as a research associate at Leibniz University Hannover. His research focuses on the climate impact of open spaces in Lower Saxony, with a specialization in the dynamic relationship between the human skin and landscape—an approach rooted in his Master’s thesis on skin-preventive landscape architecture.
