Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB)
I did my undergraduate studies in agricultural sciences (Master, 1991) and graduate work in Applied Biological Sciences (PhD, 2001) at University of Ghent (Ugent). I first specialized in native seed production to restore degraded arid lands, with field experience in collecting, evaluating and using native perennial grasses and legumes in South-Tunisia that dated back to 1992. I then completed a Marie Curie post-doctoral fellowship at the Environmental Change Institute, National University of Ireland, Galway, on the sustainable grazing of turlough habitats, a karst wetland protected by the EU Natura 2000 legislation. This post-doctorate enabled me to get back in touch with the debate on nature conservation versus food production on European farmland. I have been a full-time lecturer in Farming Systems and Agroecology at Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) since 2006. My research interests have broadened beyond native seed production and turlough grazing but both older and more recent work can be united under the banner of agroecology sensu lato (explicitly recognizing the social and political dimensions of food systems research). My research unit promotes work on agroforestry, herbage systems, the seed issue, the redefinition of soil fertility and the development of transdisciplinary research methods with an emphasis on the human dimension of food systems, in both temperate and tropical conditions.
Faculty/Department: Université libre de Bruxelles
Email: Marjolein.Visser@ulb.ac.be
URL: http://www.ulb.ac.be/facs/bioing/epspv/
