Sophie Elixhauser

Sophie Elixhauser is a Research Fellow at the University of Vienna’s Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology within the Faculty of Social Sciences. She leads the citizen science project Snow2School, collaborating with climatologists and schools in Greenland and Austria to study snow-cover changes. Her work also includes the ERC Advanced Grant Project InfraNorth, focusing on infrastructure and social dynamics in East Greenland. Dr. Elixhauser holds a PhD from the University of Aberdeen and an MA from the University of Munich, with over 20 years of fieldwork in Greenland, the European Alps, and the Philippines.

Her research interests span environmental anthropology, climate change, sensory ethnography, and Indigenous studies. Key projects include documenting personal autonomy in East Greenlandic communication and exploring infrastructural hope around airport developments. She has published widely on Arctic communities, climate perceptions, and interdisciplinary research challenges.

Recent articles address citizen science’s role in bridging social and natural sciences, Indigenous disability rights, and climate change’s socio-material impacts. Her work emphasizes ethical collaboration, local knowledge integration, and transdisciplinary frameworks for sustainability.

Elixhauser’s research has been supported by grants from the Research Council of Norway and the Nordland Research Institute. She has organized workshops on Indigenous disability issues and contributed to documentaries, such as *Sermiligaaq*, winning the Wiley-Blackwell Film Prize in 2009.