Esther Schuch is a research associate at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam, Germany and joined CDRI as visiting research fellow in February 2022. She holds a PhD in Environmental and Behavioral Economics from Wageningen University, Netherlands, and a master’s degree in Political Economy from University of Trier, Germany.

She works on social-ecological systems and socio-technical system in which she studies how humans interact with each other and the ecological or technical system. Of particular interest to her are social norms, behavioural biases, and attitudes with a special focus on countries in the Global South. Her current research ranges from social norms towards electricity theft in Colombia, to attitudes towards renewable energy in Jordan and Malaysia, measuring energy justice, to support for renewable energy and energy literacy in Cambodia. She uses a combination of methods from surveys, economic experiments, and expert interviews. Esther’s areas of interest are energy transition dynamics, natural resource management, and sustainable development.

Email : Esther.Schuch@iass-potsdam.de