Joanna Storie, PhD, is a researcher and lecturer in the Chair of Landscape Architecture at the Estonian University of Life Sciences.
Joanna’s research interests cover a variety of topics, such as the challenges communities face in rural landscapes; citizen science and its influence on policy; and understanding the role landscape architecture can play in the new bioeconomy. She is also currently a co-chair on the Eklipse Expert Working Group examining how ecosystem services can be incorporated into mitigation hierarchy policy.
Joanna has a diverse background that has enabled her to draw together a variety of perspectives and can envisage synergies from what can seem like disparate themes. She completed her bachelor’s degree in pharmacology and chemistry in 1985. After many years of caring for her children – including a period of home-education incorporating online resources, self-employed children’s work and satisfying her creative side, she decided to return to academia. She obtained an MSc in Managing Sustainable Rural Development in 2012 online with a Scottish University, the University of the Highlands and Islands. Her thesis examined wildlife conflicts in an area of Latvia where she now lives with her husband on an alpaca farm. In 2020 she completed her PhD at the Estonian University of Life Sciences with her thesis “When peace and quiet is not enough: Examining the challenges communities face in Estonian and Latvian rural landscapes”.
She has also been involved in a systematic mapping project, BONUS ROSEMARIE: Blue health and wealth from the Baltic Sea, which focussed on the impacts of Baltic Sea ecosystem services on human health and well-being. Her current work includes creating a database of best practice for designs of blue spaces to improve health and well-being, BlueProfiles; co-hosting online seminars, Exploring Landscape Boundaries; as well as teaching the Strategic Local Planning course to the international master’s students.