Team
Founded in 2020 as a transdisciplinary and international platform bringing together researchers and partners who are working on the climate-migration-health nexus. The network consists of a coordination team housed at Ghent University, a steering committee, and members consisting of academic institutions, NGOs and individuals from more than 40 countries around the world.
Coordination team
The coordination team of CliMigHealth is based at Ghent University (Belgium) and oversees the daily organisation of the network.
Ilse Ruyssen
Director
Biography
Ilse Ruyssen is Associate Research Professor in Migration Economics at the Department of Economics of Ghent University and affiliated Research Fellow at the UNU-CRIS. She is the director of the CliMigHealth International Thematic Network, uniting scholars around the world from multiple disciplines working on the nexus between climate change, migration and health(care). Her research focuses on the factors shaping migration decisions and immobility (with particular attention for the role of climate change, health and retain factors), as well as the implications of (non-)migration for the livelihoods of individuals and communities. She teaches various courses in migration and international economics at Ghent University, chairs the facultary Committee for Diversity and Inclusion, and coordinates the International Trade, Migration and Investment research group at her Department.
Skills and expertise
International Migration, Multiculturalism, Gender Studies, Panel Data, International Economics, Human Rights, Development Economics, Human Capital, Ethnicity, Cultural Diversity
Charlotte Scheerens
Coordinator – charlotte.scheerens@ugent.be
Biography
Charlotte Scheerens is a postdoctoral researcher at Ghent University and is the coordinator of CliMigHealth. Her research interests are temperature and pollution impacts on COPD, integrated and equitable primary health care approaches, planetary health and climate change (and migration)-related health risks. She is also affiliated with KULeuven’s Academic Centre for Family Medicine working for the Intego team on monitoring climate-health impacts through primary care data, BIDMC’s Institute for lung health, United Nations University-CRIS, the Lancet Migration, and the WHO Technical working group on equity of the Global Health Workforce. She is involved in policy work for the Belgian governments, through committees on climate and health and just transition, and the New Green Deal Zorg. She was also former coordinator of Climate Express, a Belgian non-profit demanding higher climate ambition through mass mobilization.
Skills and expertise
Environmental health, Planetary Health, Temperature and Air Pollutants, Integrated Primary Care, COPD, Health System Equity
Steering Committee
The steering committee meets every two months to discuss strategic matters, and is composed of fourteen members: the director and coordinator, two leads per research stream (three for the Migration stream), and one responsible for the regional Africa hub. They are displayed hereunder.
Ilse Ruyssen (Chair)
Faculty of Economics, Ghent University, Belgium.
Charlotte Scheerens (co-Chair)
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Ghent University, Belgium.
Els Bekaert (Lead junior program)
Faculty of Economics, Ghent University, Belgium.
Christian Lueme Lokotola (Africa hub lead)
Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
Hans Keune (co-lead Methodology)
Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Antwerp, Belgium.
Patricia Nayna Schwerdtle (co-lead Methodology)
Heidelberg Institute of Global Health, Heidelberg University, Germany.
Nidhi Nagabhatla (co-lead Climate)
United Nations University-CRIS, and Faculty of Science, McMaster University, Canada.
Rashmi Venkatraman (co-lead Climate)
The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom.
Inmaculada Martinez-Zarzoso (co-lead Migration)
Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Goettingen, Germany.
Michaella Vanore (co-lead Migration)
Maastricht Graduate School for Governance, Maastricht University, The Netherlands.
Robert Oakes (co-lead Migration)
Environment and Migration: Interactions and Choices (EMIC) Section
United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), International Organisation.
Peter Delobelle (co-lead Health)
Chronic Disease Initiative for Africa, University of Cape Town, Department of Public Health, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, and Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases Process Evaluation Working Group.
Rita Issa (co-lead Health)
Faculty of Climate Change and Migration, University College London, United Kingdom.
Arthur Wyns (co-lead Governance)
Climate advisor, World Health Organization.
