Dr Aisa Manlosa, a postdoctoral researcher in ZMT’s working group “Institutions and Behavioural Economics”

14/07/2021 | Dr Aisa Manlosa, a postdoctoral researcher in ZMT’s working group “Institutions and Behavioural Economics”, has been awarded the “Promotionspreis” (PhD Award) for her doctoral thesis by Leuphana University Lüneburg.

Dr Manlosa graduated from Leuphana University in 2019. In her dissertation she examined how smallholder farming livelihoods can be more effectively leveraged to address food security.

She undertook empirical research in the Jimma Zone of southwestern Ethiopia addressing research questions such as: How do livelihood strategies influence food security?  What livelihood challenges are common and how do households cope with these? How do social institutions, in which livelihoods are embedded, influence people’s abilities to undertake livelihoods and be food secure?

Two years after her graduation Dr Manlosa went back to her alma mater – at least virtually – to receive PhD Award during the university’s annual “Dies Academicus” which marks the end of the academic year at the institution.

Leuphana University honoured the dissertation’s ”intelligent and visionary approach to the topic of food security”.

The award certificate further reads: “Focusing on food security and gender issues, Ms. Manlosa addresses some of the most important questions of our time, impressing with intellectual precision and clarity. Her research is already published in international journals, some of them prestigious, and is cited to a ground-breaking degree.”

Dr Manlosa says about the honour: “I feel humbled by the recognition and grateful for the opportunity to grow as a researcher during my PhD at Leuphana. I continue my research interest in livelihoods and institutions in the context of food security, this time with a focus on capture fisheries and aquaculture at ZMT.”