Career

Opportunities for students and young professionals
We believe that agroforestry is becoming more recognised as a powerful tool for climate change mitigation and poverty alleviation. Agroforestry Network encourages students and young professionals to participate in the network. Below is a list of our partners and the possibilities they offer students and young professionals to incorporate agroforestry and development cooperation into their career paths.

SIANI Youth  is a part of SIANI, and a platform for young people who have an interest in agriculture and food security from an international perspective. SIANI Youth encourages students and young professionals to get in touch to explore internship or blog opportunities!

Vi Agroforestry offers an international internship program for Swedish citizens as well as internships at the head office in Stockholm. There are also possibilities for Minor Field Studies. For residents in our countries of operation, please visit our international website for more information about internship possibilities.

SLU Global is the unit at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences that implements SLU’s strategy for global development and poverty alleviation, by coordinating and supporting the university’s research and education aiming at developing the agricultural sector in low-income countries. SLU offers many opportunities for students and young professionals to get international experience, for instance Minor Field Study Scholarships, Erasmus+ exchange studies and our International Course Package with a chance to get field experience in Kenya.

Our students in Africa

Mia Madsen, Louise Johansson and Linus Karlsson. Previous students for Vi Agroforestry in Uganda.

 

Network

Elisabeth Simelton

Elisabeth Simelton is a climate-change scientist at World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF), based in Hanoi since 2010. She holds a PhD in geography and BA in International Education and has a genuine interdisciplinary experience through global climate-change impact studies on food security and crop-modelling to developing farmer-centered agro-climatic information services. Currently, she is a project leader of three research studies under the CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security that are being implemented in Viet Nam, Lao PDR, Cambodia and the Philippines. This work includes managing one of the seven ‘climate-smart village’ projects in Southeast Asia. Her main research interest is in innovating participatory tools for interacting with smallholder farming communities and agricultural extension services, mixing qualitative and quantitative methods, as well as developing policy guidelines for adaptation and mitigation.

Her work includes over 30 scientific peer-reviewed publications, including Nature Scientific Reviews and Food Security, which have been widely cited, including in reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In addition, she has produced numerous training materials, participatory methods and other material related to environmental services, climate adaptation and agricultural insurance that are used by universities and research and development organisations globally. She is an avid blogger and trainer/facilitator. Dr Simelton has over 20 years of experience in Southeast and East Asia (10 years in Viet Nam, 5 in China), southern Africa, and Europe (Spain, Sweden, UK), where she has worked with universities, United Nations agencies and the CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future.

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Johanna Björklund

Johanna Björklund is associate professor in environmental science at the School of Science and Technology at Örebro University. She has here research interests in new systems of multifunctional agriculture and the use of ecosystem services as management tools in such systems. She has coordinated a Swedish Participatory Learning and Action Research (PLAR) project conducting research and development of Swedish agroforestry system. Methods for multi-criteria assessments of ecosystem services in agro-ecosystem are within the field of her work. She is the Swedish representative in the general assembly of EURAF (European Agroforestry Federation) and a board member of the newly establish organisation Agroforestry Sweden. Part of her time she is dedicated to education as responsible for the Culinary Arts and Ecology program at Örebro University.

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Hanna Sinare

Hanna Sinare works at Stockholm Resilience Centre and is a member of Focali. She holds a PhD in Natural Resources Management from Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University. Her research is focused on the multiple benefits people obtain from ecosystem services in village landscapes in Sudano-Sahelian West Africa. Agroforestry systems are dominant in these landscapes. Hanna is currently working within the GRAID programme (Guidance for Resilience in the Anthropocene: Investments for development) with synthesis of resilience research in the Sahel as a knowledge base for development interventions.

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gert nyberg

Gert Nyberg is a researcher and research coordinator at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences. His main fields of research are Agroforestry and Restoration of Degraded Lands, mainly in Eastern Africa. Gert is a soil scientist and works with the dynamics of carbon, nutrients and water in soil-plant systems in applied agriculture and agroforestry systems. He coordinated the Triple L Research Initiative (Land, Livestock and Livelihood), which is a multidisciplinary research initiative between several Swedish Universities, several Kenyan Universities, International research organisations, Vi Agroforestry and local policy makers and stakeholders. He has practical experience from agroforestry and restoration development work in East Africa and has previously been working with Vi Agroforestry.

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