PhD projects

Tabitha Hackenberg

Tabitha is a Research Fellow currently pursuing her doctoral studies as well as a Lecturer at the Department of Energy and Environmental Management (EEM). Her doctoral research focuses on integrating energy system analysis and planning with spatial techniques for modelling sustainable energy systems in the Global South. She lectures on Geographical Information Systems (GIS) for energy modelling and simulation as well as Research Methods with an emphasis on quantitative methods.

Tabitha has a Master of Engineering in Energy and Environmental Management with a specialization in developing countries from Europa-Universität Flensburg, Germany and a Bachelor of Science in Manufacturing Engineering and Technology from Egerton University, Kenya. Before pursuing her postgraduate studies, Tabitha was a sales engineer and later a project manager in the packaging and bottling machine manufacturing industry working with clients in East and Central Africa.

Mominul Hasan

Mominul Hasan has been a research fellow and PhD student at the Department of Energy and Environmental Management (EEM) of Europa-Universitaet Flensburg since 2018. His PhD research focuses on identifying catalysts for the energy transition in developing countries with a case study on Bangladesh. This research aims to develop an energy system model for maximizing renewable energy share in the country, considering potential opportunities and overcoming challenges at the status quo. Within this framework, Mominul scrutinizes options like electric vehicles, distributed generation, distributed energy storage, such as behind and front of the meter energy storage, digitalization of power systems, such as virtual net-metering and peer-to-peer energy transactions. He is expected to accomplish his PhD degree by 2023. 

Mominul was born and grew up in Bangladesh. His academic background includes a bachelor degree in electrical and electronic engineering from Bangladesh and a master degree in Energy and Environmental Management from EUF.

Mominul has over five years of project development experience in renewable energy, such as grid-connected PV systems, mini-grids, and smart grids. Since 2018, he has been an active academic staff of EEM and offers courses like solar PV systems and project management. He enjoys interacting with international students for expanding his intercultural and interdisciplinary skills.   

Yudha Irmansyah Siregar

Yudha holds a bachelor’s degree in Geological Engineering from Institut Teknologi Bandung, Indonesia. In 2015, he finished a master programme focusing on energy economics at TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Germany. His master thesis discussed energy scenarios and models for the development of the global energy sector.
Yudha worked for more than eight years in the energy sector in Indonesia. After completing his bachelor, he gained professional experience in the energy extraction industry between 2009 and 2013. From 2016 until 2020, he actively involved in promoting clean energy development in Indonesia. Yudha was working for non-profit organisations during the period.
Since October 2020, Yudha has joined the Department of Energy and Environmental Management as a PhD student. Energy transition in his home country is the overarching theme of the research project. He combines a number of qualitative and quantitative methods to address the bottlenecks of renewables deployment in Indonesia. His main PhD topics are energy policymaking, energy modelling and renewable energy economics.
 

Setu Pelz

Setu was born in New Delhi, India in 1988, and emigrated with his family to Melbourne, Australia in 1995. After obtaining his Victorian Certificate of Education (University Entrance Diploma), he began a double degree in Mechanical Engineering and Business Management at RMIT University. After completing his studies in 2010, Setu joined the renewable energy industry, gaining experience as an engineer in the onshore and offshore wind energy sector, first in Australia and later in Europe. Setu left his career in the wind industry in 2014 to consult for RVE.SOL, a start-up building solar mini grids in East Africa. This enabled him to gather practical experience in Kenya and investigate first-hand the challenges of financing and planning decentralised energy generation projects in developing countries. From mid-2015 Setu worked at MicroEnergy International in Berlin, focusing on the topic of Energy Poverty and innovative solutions such as Swarm Electrification through the daughter company ME SOLshare in Bangladesh. It was in this interdisciplinary context that Setu developed his research approach, which thanks to the Reiner Lemoine-Stiftung he currently pursues at Europa-Universität Flensburg. His interdisciplinary research project seeks to develop a methodology for the smart measurement of household energy development pathways. This involves adapting and validating methods for continuous energy poverty measurement, modelling and predictive analysis. These methods will leverage Internet of Things sensors and GSM based surveys to provide real-time information that enables insightful analytics. The aim of this research project is improving energy poverty assessment and providing better evidence for energy access policy decision-making on the path toward a global renewable energy transformation.

Le, Quyen Phuong

Phuong Le is Electrical Engineer and holds a Master of Energy and Environmental Management from Europa-Universität Flensburg. He was born in Vietnam and was a Scientific Assistant on Wind Energy Engineering in FH Flensburg and Europa-Universität Flensburg, from 2012 to 2017. Phuong Le is now working in an energy company in Germany. Wind turbulence and economic aspects are always his fascinating objects in his research topics.

Rajarajan Rathinavelu

Rajarajan Rathinavelu, obtained his B.Tech (2007) in Mechanical Engineering from NIT-Jaipur, India, M.Eng (2009) in Technical Management from University of Applied Sciences-Emden, Germany and M.Sc (2012) in Wind Energy Engineering form University of Applied Sciences-Flensburg, Germany.

In 2007, Raj started his professional life as a co-founder of textile start-up, JO FAB, India. Later, he went onto work in renewable energy thematics at organizations such as HiLOG, Germany; Lahmeyer International, Germany; Noridic Folke Center for Renewable Energy, Denmark; FOWIND, India; ITU Diensleistungen, Germany.  

Since 2013 Raj doing his doctoral research on Offshore Wind Farm Planning in India on self financing mode.

Finalized PhD projects

María M. Movsessian

Maria was born in Managua, Nicaragua in 1987. Studied Industrial Engineering at Universidad Centroamericana in her home country between 2005 and 2010. She worked at an affiliate of Exxonmobil from 2008 until 2012 as part of the Maintenance Planning team and as Project Engineer where she developed projects with focus on energy savings and environmental impact. In 2012 she was awarded a scholarship from DAAD and joined the "Energy and Environmental Management with focus on Developing Countries" Master Program in the University of Flensburg, Germany. For her master thesis, she assessed the use of fuels in the Transport Sector in Nicaragua and sought to promote the use of domestically produced biofuels.
Through a doctoral scholarship from the Reiner Lemoine-Stiftung, María started in 2014 her doctoral research at the Interdisciplinary institute for Environmental-, Social- and Human in Europa-Universität Flensburg about the self-proposed project " Seeking a more environmentally sound Nicaragua by 2035: promoting Renewable Energies and assessing their contribution towards Sustainable Development in the country".

Paul Bertheau

Paul Bertheau was born in 1986 in Berlin where he grew up. After the acquiring of his Abitur, he completed a voluntary ecological year in a conservation centre in Brandenburg where he developed his interest in environmental topics. He then went on to study his Bachelor in landscaping and conservation as well as undertaking zoological research. The prominence of climate change as a global environmental issue further expanded his interest in broader questions of global responsibility and justice. These were the focus of his master's degree in "Global Change Management" where he was able to acquire specialised knowledge in the field of renewable energy. After studying, he also gained important practical experience in the design and application of renewable energy projects in developing countries.

Since compiling his master thesis (2012), in which he examined the global potential for the hybridization of diesel systems with renewable energy solutions, he has addressed the topics of rural electrification and decentralized energy systems from many angles. While working as a research assistant at the RLI on energy access and electrification strategies, he was also involved in the implementation of various projects. In recent years he was also able to gather regional experience in many countries including those in South-East Asia.

Annika Groth

Annika studied Economics at the Free University in Berlin and the Universidad Francisco de Vitoria in Madrid. Previously, she worked as a Research Fellow for the Prognos AG, the European Centre for Economic Research and Strategy Consulting in Basel and for Chile Ambiente, an environmental organization in Santiago de Chile. She also gained professional experience working with BITKOM, the German Federal Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media, GIZ, the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit, and DIW Berlin, the German Institute for Economic Research. Her main areas of research interests are renewable energy sources, economic development and public sector economics. She works for the EEM Department and is pursuing her PhD on socio-economic effects of mini-grid systems connected to the central grid.

John Kuteesakwe

John Kuteesakwe holds a Master of science in Energy Systems and Management of Europa Universität Flensburg  and a Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture of Makerere University, Uganda. He worked for 7 years in Agricultural sector with Sugar Corporation of Uganda Limited and with World Vision – an international NGO, hence combining experience of profit and non-profit organization. Having finished his Masters he worked for more than 8 years with GTZ (now GIZ) in the Uganda Energy Department being employed first as a project office, program officer and finally as a project coordinator for the biomass energy component of the Program. Since 2011, he has a part-time lectureship at Europa Universität Flensburg as he pursues his PhD in the Sustainability of Cooking energy in Sub-Saharan Africa – a case study in Uganda.

Agunyo Miria Frances

Miria pursued a Bachelor`s in Engineering Environmental Engineering & Management with a focus on environmental management systems, sanitation and project management at Kyambogo University in Uganda from 2004 to 2008. From 2008 to 2011 she was employed as an operation`s officer at BIMCO Consult Ltd, an environmental firm involved in carrying out impact assessments and audits of various projects within Uganda. During this time she was part of a team carrying out impact assessment and audits for projects involving factory, petroleum station, housing estate establishments, telecommunication/electrical base station installations. Agunyo also lectured environment impact assessment and economics of environment on a part time basis at Kyambogo University from 2010 to2011. From 2012 to 2013 Agunyo pursued a Master`s in Engineering Energy & Environmental management with a focus on developing countries. In her master thesis she compared Bremen Overseas Research & Development Association (BORDA) wastewater treatment systems with a centralised wastewater treatment system in Germany using life cycle assessment. Some of recommendations from her thesis are currently implemented by BORDA for some of their systems. During this time she also completed a 3 months internship at Farmatic Anlagenbau GmbH in Germany, a company leading in industrial scale biogas technology implementation mostly in Europe. She was part of the engineering team were she obtained experience in designing, process engineering and trouble shooting of biogas plants. Since November 2013 Agunyo has been employed as a lecturer at Flensburg University of Applied Science as she pursued her PhD at Europa Universität Flensburg. She was also employed as research assistant for the Interreg IVa Large scale bioenergy Labs project from November 2013 to February 2015 where she focused on post treatment of digestate.

Sebastian Groh

Sebastian holds a Bachelor in Economics from University of Mannheim (Germany) and Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain) as well as a Masters in International Economics from the University of Goettingen (Germany), University of Pune (India) and Universidad José Matías Delgado (El Salvador). Sebastian received an executive training on strategic leadership for microfinance from Harvard Business School and is a Stanford Ignite Fellow of 2013 from Stanford Graduate School of Business. Sebastian finalized his PhD on the role of energy in development processes, energy poverty and technical innovations under support of the Hans-Böckler Foundation. He is originally from Germany and resides in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Theoneste Uhorakeye

Theoneste holds a Master of Engineering (MEng.) in Energy and Environmental Management from Europa-Universität Flensburg, Germany and a Bachelor´s Degree in Electrical Power Engineering from the National University of Rwanda. He finalized his PhD research on modelling climate change effects on energy systems in Rwanda. In EEM/SESAM Program, Uhorakeye lectured Grid integration of Renewable Energy and his research interests include energy modelling, energy policy, climate change impacts assessment and GIS.

Peter Heßbrüggen

Peter studied Mechanical Engineering in Kiel and is the founder, owner and managing director of the consulting company evoltas. Since 25 years he is an advisor for strategic change management and process optimization with digital tools. His research is related to the question:
How can sustainable innovations be developed effectively?
The question contains the objective, namely the generation of sustainable innovations. It is limited to the HOW, that is the method. It asks for a course of action that will help the innovation team to effectively leverage their existing knowledge, motivation and creative talent in designing a sustainable innovation. The adverb "effectively" emphasizes that the development of sustainable innovation is an urgent problem, arising from the current problems and needs of our society. This also implies that sustainable innovation is a driver for the sustainable development of society.
As a result, he provides an ontology that can be used to develop a software application for designers, facilitators and assessors of sustainable innovation ideas. Based on the provided database it is possible to assess the sustainable idea  and evaluate the process of designing to identify patterns that make sustainable innovation more effective.