Kaisa works in the Regenerative Infrastructure team at Demos Helsinki, with one foot in practice, one in research. As the Research Area Lead focusing on Urban Transformations her current projects deal with cities and regions and their sustainability transitions. With her academic background from Aalto University (Dr.Sc. in Land Use Planning) and University of Helsinki (Lic.Phil. in Planning Geography) Kaisa is a generalist–urbanist who has published among others on planning theory, lifecourse geographies and participatory planning.
Kaisa has coordinated both international and national research consortia (ESPON, Tekes) and participated in two SRC-projects of the Urbanising Society -programme by the Academy of Finland. Currently her biggest project Net-Zero Cities (Horizon 2020) assists cities to achieve climate neutrality . The project is part of EU’s Mission “100 Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities by 2030”.
With her strong interest in geography Kaisa enjoys getting to know new places and people both in Finland and abroad. Her wide contact network includes both creative urban practitioners and acknowledged academic scholars. She served the full six-year term in the Scientific Advisory Board of the ARL (Academy for Territorial Development in the Leibniz Association) and currently she belongs to Demsoc’s Climate Advisory Group.