Nina Schwarz is currently an Assistant Professor at the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-Information Management at ITC, University of Twente. At ITC, she focusses on computational modelling of urban development, specifically with agent-based models.

Nina Schwarz holds a diploma in environmental sciences from the University of Lueneburg, Germany (2003). In 2007, she received her PhD in social and economic sciences from the University of Kassel, Germany. In her thesis, she developed an agent-based model on innovation diffusion of water technologies among private households. Her PhD project was part of a large-scale interdisciplinary project on modeling the water cycle in the Upper Danube basin (Glowa Danube) funded by the German ministry for education and research.

From 2007 to 2017, she worked at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ in Leipzig, Germany. One of her major projects as senior scientist was contributing to the modelling efforts of the EU-Integrated Project PLUREL (Peri-urban Land-Use RELationships). Furthermore, she coordinated UFZ’s contribution to the project “Energy efficient city of Delitzsch” funded by the German ministry for education and research.

Expertise

Her expertise is in interdisciplinary projects related to urban development, specifically urban land use change and urban ecosystem services. For her work, Nina Schwarz often uses methods of modelling and simulation, specifically agent-based modelling.