Ronja Hotz is a PhD student in the Land Use Change & Climate Research Group at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, where she has been working since August 2023. Her research focuses on understanding and modelling the social processes underlying land use change using agent-based modelling, with a particular emphasis on the CRAFTY framework. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Physics from Freie Universität Berlin and a Master’s degree in Theoretical Physics from Technische Universität Berlin.

Prior to her PhD, she worked at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, where she implemented a generic decision-making layer for land managers in agent-based socio-ecological models. The framework was analysed in a stylised model to investigate emergent dynamics and critical transitions and was subsequently integrated into the InSEEDS model, which simulates the adoption of conservation agriculture at regional to global scales.

I live in Salento, a small land located between two seas in Southeastern Italy. I work as an educator in an adult school. My educational background includes a degree in Life Sciences. During my post-graduate training, I was involved in researching the genetic and molecular responses of cells to environmental and genomic stresses. Currently, I am interested in exploring theoretical biology and complex adaptive systems through agent-based modelling.

I am a computational social scientist, engineer, and systems researcher. I work in several aspects of modelling the dynamics of organisational, economic and social systems. I am interested in the link between micro-level rules, structural interdependence and macro-level outcomes in a variety of settings (e.g., organisational dynamics, industry evolution, competitive spatial location, agricultural markets). I am also interested in the use of computational models for better policy design (policy modelling).