Aistė Balžekienė is the principal investigator of the Civil Society and Sustainability Research group at Kaunas University of Technology, as well as a professor in Sociology. She was the president of the Society for Risk Analysis Europe Nordic Chapter, and the past-chair of the Sociology of Risk and Uncertainty of European Sociological Association (ESA). Her research interests are: comparative research on risk perception and risk discourses, social aspects of technological and environmental risks, social impacts of technologies, climate change, and environmental sociology. Currently, she is leading a research project on the spatial analysis of risk perception.