Maud Borie was a visiting fellow with the Program on Science, Technology and Society (STS) at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in Fall 2013. Maud is currently a Research Associate in the Department of Geography at King’s College London.  Maud was a PhD student with the School of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia (UEA), in England, where she adopted a STS approach to study the politics of global environmental assessments (GEAs). Maud is designing her research project around different case studies in order to reveal the kinds of knowledges and the framings that are being adopted in these global settings to tackle the “biodiversity crisis”.

In particular, Maud is interested in exploring how “place matters” for GEAs – hence exploring how the “global” is being constructed. Her research looks at the politics of biodiversity knowledge in the context of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) – an emerging institution of science-policy advice. During her time with the STS Program, Maud is working on a case study exploring what kinds of knowledge are situated in this expert body. She also aims to develop a case study on Bonn, the “UN city of Germany,” which also hosts the IPBES Secretariat.

Prior to her PhD research, Maud completed a Dual Bachelor’s Degree in Biology and Social Sciences at the University Pierre et Marie Curie (UPMC) and at the French Institute of Political Sciences, in Paris (Sciences Po Paris). Following a year at the University of Buenos Aires, in Argentina, Maud embarked into a cross-disciplinary Master’s programme in Environmental Science and Policy (UPMC/Science Po). Since starting her PhD, Maud is a member of the Science, Society & Sustainability (3S) research group at UEA, which aims to conduct engaged, reflexive and interdisciplinary work looking at the relationships between science, policy and society. She currently co-edits the group blog.