I am a PhD candidate ABD (anything but dissertation) at East Carolina’s Integrated Coastal Sciences program. As an interdisciplinary researcher with a background in economics and training in hydrogeology and coastal sciences, I am working on issues related to climate change, sustainability and resilience, at the intersection of the natural and socio-economic systems. Although I am pursuing an academic degree, I am a proponent of actionable science and like to develop solutions in close collaboration with the communities that are part of my research. I firmly believe that we as scientists have several functions, one of them being to serve the communities we are working in. This is another reason for my intention to bring a continued focus to outreach and public engagement throughout my research pursuits, to foster pro-environmental behavior and community cohesion.
In March 2025 I gave a webinar talk for the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NC DEQ) about my research at ECU, you can access it here: https://ncgov.webex.com/recordingservice/sites/ncgov/recording/playback/f8700527e700103d9ffb0648e1f152bd (Please enter the Password: Ht3PaHV to watch the recording).
At my previous university, the Justus-Liebig University Giessen, I have been working on the REdMig project, a collaboration with the University of Hamburg. My research focus has been on non-monetary benefits of education. Hereby I have been analyzing the role of education in bridging geographical distances using the German panel dataset SOEP (socio-economic panel).
You can find my publications and conference contributions in the following. If you wish to receive any of my working papers, please do not hesitate to contact me.
Publications:
Education and Social Support: Do Migrants Benefit as much as Natives?, Jana Brandt and Kyra Selina Hagge, CMS 8, 41 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-020-00199-w
Variations in Access to Social Support - The Effects of Residential Mobility and Spatial Proximity to Kin and Family, Kyra Hagge and Diana Schacht, Social Indicators Research, Soc Indic Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-023-03280-w
Working Papers:
Spatial Dispersion of Social Networks: The Realized Ability to Bridge Geographical Distances, Kyra Hagge and Jana Brandt, Under Review.
Knowledge, trust, and environmental labelling - On the importance of trust in institutions to protect the environment and the knowledge of sustainable labels (Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), USDA Organic, and Non-GMO project) in the consumption of green food and beverage items in the United States, Kyra Hagge, in preparation.
(Copies of these working papers can be obtained upon request).
Conference Contributions:
Poster "Connecting Human Behavior and Physical Systems Using Agent-Based Modeling: Individual Wastewater Treatment Systems in the Tar-Pamlico Watershed in Eastern North Carolina", AGU Fall Meeting, December 8-13, 2024, Washington D.C., USA. (Awarded with an Outstanding student presentation award (OSPA) search for Kyra Hagge).
Poster "Together for a Common Cause? Agent-based model to represent cooperative behavior and decision-making in a social dilemma around wastewater treatment in Eastern North Carolina", International Conference on Social Dilemmas, July 1-5, 2024, Leiden, Netherlands.
Poster "Together for a Common Cause? Cooperative tendencies in transdisciplinary research groups aimed at solving water quality and quantity issues in Eastern North Carolina", North Carolina Water Resources Research Institute (WRRI) annual conference, March 20-21, 2024, Raleigh, USA.
Presentation "Variations in Access to Social Support - the Effects of Residential Mobility and Spatial Proximity to Kin and Family", International Society of Quality of Life Studies annual conference, August 21-25, 2023, Rotterdam, Netherlands.
Presentation AGU Fall Meeting 2020, "A framework to support the classification of virtual reality experiences in environmental education", December 7-December 17, online everywhere.
Presentation "Spatial Dispersion of Social Networks: The Realized Ability to Bridge Geographical Distances", 2nd North American Social Network Conference (NASN), November 27-December 1, 2018, Washington, D.C., USA.
Poster "Spatial Dispersion of Social Networks: The Realized Ability to Bridge Geographical Distances", 6th EARLI-SIG 13 & 2nd InZentIM Conference, August 27-29, 2018, Essen, Germany.
Presentation "Spatial Dispersion of Social Networks: The Realized Ability to Bridge Geographical Distances", 13th SOEP User Conference, July 19-20, 2018, Berlin, Germany.