PhD defence by Anne Cathrine Linder

On Friday, 23 January 2026, at 13:00, Anne Cathrine Linder from DTU Aqua will defend her PhD thesis, “Computational Human Ecology. Understanding the Role of Cultural Ecosystem Services in Trade-offs Between Human Well-Being and Nature Conservation”.

You can follow the defence online in Zoom via this link or in person at DTU Lyngby Campus, 2800 Kongens Lyngby, building 306, auditorium 32.

During her PhD project, Anne Cathrine Linder developed a computational human ecology approach to better understand how people interact with nature and how experiences of beauty, recreation, and relaxation contribute to human well-being. These non-material benefits, known as cultural ecosystem services, are central to the quality of life but have been difficult to measure and therefore often overlooked in environmental and health policies.

By combining large-scale digital data from social media, smartphones, and smartwatches, with global environmental data, Anne Cathrine Linder’s research captures patterns of everyday human-nature interactions at an unprecedented scale. Her work highlights that protecting and enabling access to nature is not only vital for biodiversity but also for public health and she suggests a more integrated approach to sustainability, recognizing nature as essential infrastructure for human well-being.

Examiners

• Senior Researcher Stefan Neuenfeldt, DTU Aqua (chair)
• Professor Adam Dennett, University College London, UK
• Professor Tuuli Toivonen, University of Helsinki, Finland

Chair of defence

• Senior Researcher Lotte Kindt-Larsen, DTU Aqua

Supervisors

• Principal Supervisor: Professor David Lusseau, DTU Aqua
• Co-supervisor: Associate Professor Laura Alessandretti, DTU Compute

Learn more

• Read the popular science summary of Anne Cathrine Linder’s PhD thesis

A copy of the thesis is available for reading at DTU Aqua. Please contact PhD Coordinator Susan Zumbach Johannesen, szjo@aqua.dtu.dk