Dr. Kira Vinke works at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research as the project lead of EPICC (East Africa Peru India Climate Capacities), an interdisciplinary project on the co-production of knowledge about regional climate and hydrological systems and their interactions with agricultural livelihoods, human migration and security. Ms. Vinke is co-chairing the Advisory Council on Civilian Crisis Prevention and Peacebuilding of the German Federal Government. 

She obtained her PhD in political science with highest distinctions from Humboldt Universität zu Berlin, Germany. She completed a joint Master’s program in International Relations at Freie Universität Berlin, Universität Potsdam and Humboldt Universität zu Berlin and her undergraduate degree in International Relations at Hawai’i Pacific University, in Honolulu, Hawai’i. She has studied abroad in Madrid, Tokyo and New Delhi and worked for the Asian Development Bank and GIZ as a consultant, lead authoring the flagship reports “Home Lands – Island and Archipelagic States’ Policymaking for Human Mobility in the Context of Climate Change” and “A Region at Risk – The Human Dimensions of Climate Change in Asia and the Pacfic.” She is a member of the New York-based Explorers Club (Term 2016) and has published two books, one of them on climate change and migration. In the HABITABLE project Dr. Vinke is involved in Work Package 4.