Karina Klein obtained her BA in geography at the University of Bonn and her MS in natural resources management and development at the University of Applied Sciences in Cologne, Germany. For her thesis, she analysed the potato value chain in La Paz, Bolivia and illuminated the interlinkages of consumers’ preferences and the loss of biodiversity of Andean agricultural lands. As a young professional, she worked for the German development organisation GIZ in Germany and Zambia, in the areas of agricultural value chains and efficient water management in agriculture. Recently she is working at the Federal Office for Agriculture and Food in Bonn within the division “Information and Coordination Centre for Biological Diversity (IBV)”. As part of an international project consortium, she is engaged in the development of a European Genetic Resources Strategy, within the Horizon 2020 GenRes Bridge project. Her main research interest centres on the conservation and sustainable use of genetic resources for food and agriculture, investigated from an interdisciplinary perspective, due to her diversified academic background. Her expertise lies in the areas of sustainable resource management, agrobiodiversity, food security and social-ecological systems.