Dr. Jutta Gutberlet

Jutta Gutberlet is a Professor in the Geography Department and an affiliated faculty member of the Centre for Global Studies at the University of Victoria (UVic), Canada. She earned her PhD at the University of Tübingen, Germany, defending her thesis in 1990, on social and environmental impact evaluation of the industrial pole in Cubatão, Brazil. She is an award-winning community-engaged scholar and the director of the Community-Based Research Laboratory at UVic. She started as an Associate Professional Officer with the FAO in Rome and Ecuador and worked as a Researcher at the University of Tübingen, Germany, in collaboration with the Federal University of Mato Grosso (UFMT), Brazil, and as a Lecturer at the University of Newcastle in Australia. She has long-term international experiences in participatory, action-oriented research related to sustainable development, resilient communities and global environmental health. For more than 20 years, she has focused on discard and waste studies, particularly waste governance, grassroots innovations, capacity building and popular education. Her latest project is dedicated to the creation of a University for and with waste pickers.