About us
Secretariat
Andreas Schuck
Senior Researcher
Andreas holds an MSc in Forest Science from Freiburg University, Germany. He has been working on forest biodiversity conservation, forest risks caused by natural disturbances and forest resilience management.
Bernhard Wolfslehner
Head of Secretariat
Dr. Bernhard Wolfslehner is the Head of Governance Programme of the European Forest Institute (EFI) and has more than 20 years of research experience on sustainable forest management. Among other tasks, he is Head of the Secretariat of the INTEGRATE network.
Elisabeth Schatzdorfer
Principal Scientist
Dr. Elisabeth Schatzdorfer (neé Pötzelsberger) is a forest scientist, natural resources management expert and ecologist with a PhD from BOKU University, Vienna. She worked at the Institute of Silviculture for around 10 years before joining EFI in 2020 as Head of Resilience Programme. After a maternity leave in 2023 she is now Principal Scientist.
Dr. Schatzdorfer focuses on potentials and barriers for adaptive forest landscape restoration and ecosystem service provision under climate change, including dealing with the question of non-native trees.
Gesche Schifferdecker
Communications Manager
A passionate and experienced science communicator, Gesche Schifferdecker joined EFI’s Bonn office in 2017 to lead the Communications Team. She is responsible for managing dissemination and communication activities for international, European and national research projects and engaging with diverse stakeholders from science, policy, forestry practice and society. Gesche is a political scientist by background and started to work in science communications more than 15 years ago.
Rahel Könen
Communications Officer
As an engaged science communicator, Rahel Könen joined EFI with an interdisciplinary background in social sustainability, international studies and journalism. She holds an MSc in Human Ecology from Lund University with a research focus on political ecology, socio-ecological regeneration and sustainability transformations. As a communications professional, she’s passionate about integrating multiple perspectives and facilitating collaborative spaces for meaningful dialogue. Aside from the Integrate Network, she supports work on TRANSFORMIT and Superb Project.