Dr Katrin Schmid is a social anthropologist and integrative geographer working at the intersections of environmental change, Arctic infrastructure, food sovereignty, and future-making. Her current work as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Graz Department of Geography and Regional Science focusses on Tasiilaq, Greenland, where she and the “SermilikT – research together, learn together” team are co-creating a research and learning hub centered on social topics of climate and environmental research.
Katrin holds a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology (2026) from the University of Vienna, a Master’s degree in Anthropology from the University of British Columbia (2020), as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Ethnology and Environmental Studies from the University of Zurich (2018).
During her doctoral studies within the ERC Advanced Grant project “InfraNorth”, Katrin conducted 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in five communities in Nunavut, Canada. Her research examined transport infrastructures as material manifestations of Arctic sovereignty, and critically questioned their role in Nunavut’s food sovereignty. During her Master’s research within the SSHRC funded “K’tai Social Ecology” project, Katrin worked with Gitxaała Environmental Monitoring as a research intern examining impacts of climate change on access to local foods in Gitxaała First Nation territory. Her Bachelor’s research was part of a collaboration between the University of Zurich and Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, where Katrin sought to better understand how different mobility technologies influence the daily mobility of pedestrians with visual impairments.
