Felicia O. AkinyemiView profile
Associate Professor
Dr. Felicia O. Akinyemi is an Associate Professor at Karlstad University and a Senior Researcher (Marie Curie Research Fellow) at the Institute of Geography, University of Bern, Switzerland. She holds a habilitation (venia docendi) in Remote Sensing and Integrative Geography. Her research focuses on land system change, remote sensing of land degradation, and climate change impacts in socio-ecological systems. Certified as a Geographic Information System Professional (GISP), she integrates remote sensing and spatial analysis to address sustainability challenges such as land degradation and agricultural resilience in drylands, tropical regions, and temperate zones. She leads projects like the EU-funded LucFRes initiative, which examines agricultural land change impacts on smallholder farming systems. Her work spans interdisciplinary collaborations with organizations like UNCCD, IPBES, and EGU. Key grants include the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship and Humboldt Research Fellowship. She has authored over 80 peer-reviewed articles, with a focus on geospatial methodologies for environmental monitoring. Her research interests include land-use persistence, UN SDG 15 Land Degradation Neutrality, and agroecosystem resilience. She co-developed frameworks for validating land degradation metrics using satellite time series and in situ data. Notable contributions include assessing cropland expansion's environmental trade-offs in Nigeria and mapping forest patches in West Africa for conservation. Dr. Akinyemi advises students across all academic cycles and collaborates globally, including with universities in Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, and Africa. She engages stakeholders in knowledge exchange workshops to bridge science and policy for sustainable land management.
