Ussher Assistant Professor in Modern Environmental History (Trinity College Dublin, since 2016), Research Fellow (German Historical Institute Moscow, 2010 - 2016), Phd (Eastern European History, University of Goettingen, 2013); MA (Eastern European History & Economics, University of Goettingen, 2008).

Katja Bruisch is the Ussher Assistant Professor in Environmental History at Trinity since September 2016. Before coming to Trinity, she was a Research Fellow at the German Historical Moscow (2010-2016). She holds a PhD in Eastern European History (2013) and a MA in Eastern European History and Economics (2008) from the University of Goettingen. Her research focuses on the environmental, social and economic aspects of rural transformation in modern Russia. Her first book dealt with the relation between science, politics and the public sphere and the role played by experts in dealing with the "agrarian question" in the late Tsarist and early Soviet periods (Als das Dorf noch Zukunft war: Agrarismus und Expertise between Zarenreich und Sowjetunion). In her current project, Katja is studying peatland reclamation in Imperial and Soviet Russia, focussing on the ideas around, the social practices and the ecological implications of the attempt to turn peatlands into resource reservoirs of the national economy. Her research aims to identify Russia's place in the global process of wetland transformation during the modern period as well as to understand why the sustainable management of peatlands in Russia keeps being a problem until the present.