Mélanie Surchat

Transdisciplinary Lab (ETH Zürich)
CHN K76.2

E-mail:

Research Interests

Trained as an agroecologist, I am passionate about how human societies are going to transition to a socially inclusive and sustainable food system. Hence, in the context of my PhD, I am taking part of a larger project called RUNRES that is trying to push forward sociotechnical innovations (Composting, Black Soldier Fly, Small-Scale Processing…) to recycle urban organic waste from households and toilets (human excreta) into soil amendments, fertilizers and animal feed. Technical innovations are often dominated by male employees, but also by male academics leading to a ‘gender blindness’ on how socio-technical innovations are observed and described. Hence, my contribution to the field of nutrient-based circular economy innovations is to understand how the RUNRES technical innovations might have some important ‘gendered’ components to take into account. What gender specific constraints and opportunities will men and women face to engage in small-scale circular innovations? And what role can women play in the transition to nutrient-based circular economy if they are societally considered as key stakeholders for organic waste sorting, cooking and sanitation?

I work at TdLad under the supervision of Dr. Pius Kruetli and Prof. Michael Stauffacher. Prof. Johan Six supervises my PhD at SAE.

Work Experience

2020 PhD candidate at TdLab
2019 Academic trainee for the Global Program for Food Security and Agriculture, Swiss Development & Cooperation Agency (SDC), Bern, Switzerland.
2018 Internship at the Department of Agriculture (DAG), Papeete, French Polynesia.

Education

2016-2018 M.Sc. Agroecology, University of Life Sciences (NMBU), Ås, Norway.
2013-2016 B.Sc. Environmental Sciences, University of Lausanne (UniL), Lausanne, Switzerland