AESOP Congress 2022

Contact information for the Delegate Services:
e-mail: aesop2022@publicon.ee
phone: +372 5919 2019

The organisations responsible for organising the AESOP 2022 Congress are:

Organizing Committee

Evelin Jürgenson
The head of the Local Organising Committee
Estonian University of Life Sciences

Evelin Jürgenson (PhD) is an Associate Professor at the Estonian University of Life Sciences (at the Chair of Forestry, Land Management and Food Processing). She has experience in property law and land administration issues, including land governance, land use planning, sustainable land use, land-use changes, and land take. She has worked as an adviser on land issues at the Local Government (1995-2000) and as an adviser on land administration and head of the Real Estate Department at the National Land Board (2000-2016). It has deepened her understanding of the respective activity in the public sector. Notably, it has given an in-depth insight into the functioning of public authorities in the field of land administration. Internationally active, she has been invited to participate in several international projects (RURALIZATION, Climate change in security perception, SURFACE, Public Value Capture, Land Grabbing, Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Governance of Tenure).

Kadri Leetmaa
University of Tartu

My name is Kadri Leetmaa, and I am the Director of the Centre for Migration and Urban Studies and an associate professor in human geography at the Department of Geography, University of Tartu. My academic interests have been always closely related to inequality studies, both on the urban and regional scale. My main research focus has been residential mobility and preferences, neighbourhood change, residential segregation, affordable housing, diverse neighbourhoods, urban and regional governance and planning, participative approaches in planning and neighbourhood governance. I combine quantitative and qualitative methods in my research in order to understand how various inequalities emerge, combine, and are transferred from one domain of daily life to another, from one generation to other, and what have been the experiences of cities and regions to intervene.

Ingmar Pastak
University of Tartu

Ingmar Pastak (Ph.D.) is a Research Fellow of Human Geography in the Department of Geography at the University of Tartu, Estonia. He has participated in several European Union-funded FP7 and Horizon 2020 research projects at the intersection of urban studies and human geography. His research focuses on place-making, identity and belonging, socio-spatial inequalities, spatial patterns of creative industries and smart city innovations. Ingmar Pastak is also a representative of Estonian contact point ESPON (European Spatial Planning Observation Network) and one of the main coordinators of the ESPON Transnational Outreach programme.

Kristi Grišakov
Tallinn University of Technology

Kristi is a researcher at FinEst Centre for Smart Cities and lecturer at the Academy of Architecture and Urban Studies at Tallinn University of Technology. Kristi has 12 years of experience in academic research in both Finland and Estonia and has studied urban planning and urban culture in Netherlands, UK and Belgium. She is an expert in future thinking methods and has produced trend analysis and scenario reports for different spatial development contexts, most notable she edited the future living environment chapter for the latest Estonian Human Development Report. In recent years Kristi has worked with numerous urban planning and research projects that integrate big data analysis and data visualisations with scenario planning methods, in order to have a wider understanding of the long-term impact of trends on urban lifestyles and spatial development. Currently, she is the project manager of „Green Digital Twins for Tallinn and Helsinki“ which addresses the issue of urban greenery and how it can be better taken into account in collaborative planning processes for sustainable and
more democratic cities.

Garri Raagmaa
University of Tartu

Garri RAAGMAA (PhD, Human Geography), born in Estonia in 1966, has published four books and over 90 research papers about regional planning and development focusing on regional innovation, entrepreneurship, identity and leadership issues. He has taught regional planning, economic geography and regional innovation systems at several Nordic and Baltic Universities. He has also practiced since 1992 as a regional/local development consultant and right now he is innovating the Pärnu region as a director of the University of Tartu Pärnu College. Garri is a national representative of the Regional Studies Association as well as a member of the Association of Estonian Planners and the Estonian Economic Association.

Toomas Tammis
Estonian Academy of Arts

Toomas Tammis has graduated as an architect from the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn (1994) and the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London (1996). From 2003 he is the professor in the EAA and at 2011-2017 was the dean of Faculty of Architecture. From 2012 Toomas is the member of editorial board of the magazine Ehituskunst. Toomas Tammis is a practicing architect and a founding partner of the architecture office Arhitektuuriagentuur.

Kätlin Põdra
Estonian University of Life Sciences

Kätlin Põdra (MSc) is a teacher at the Estonian University of Life Sciences at the Chair of Forestry, Land Management and Food Processing. She studied land management and real estate planning at the Estonian University of Life Sciences and dedicated her master’s thesis to arable land conversion into brushwood in Tartu County. She has worked as one of the main experts on the Estonian Land Board and as a land specialist in the Local Government. Her field of study is sustainable land use, land use changes and she teaches courses on land cadastre and land management.

Toomas Muru
Estonian University of Life Sciences

Toomas Muru is a landscape architect who obtained his landscape architecture education at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Wageningen University and Eesti Maaülikool. He also has a forestry education from Estonia. He worked as a private consultant at an Estonian planning company, trainer and then for the last 25 years as the landscape architecture study programme developer and teacher at Eesti Maaülikool. Toomas is founding member of the Estonian Union of Landscape Architects. His field of study is forest landscape planning and design and teaches several courses about spatial planning as well as coordinating internship program for landscape architecture students.

Pille  Metspalu
Estonian Association of Spatial Planners

Pille Metspalu (PhD, Human Geography and Regional Planning, thesis “The Changing Role of the Planner. Implications of Creative Pragmatism in Estonian Spatial Planning") has more than 25 years of experience in planning. She is working as a leading planning expert in Hendrikson&Ko Ltd, consulting comprehensive and regional plans, as well as preparing methodological guidelines for Estonian spatial planning. Pille is a founding member and former Chairman of the Board in Estonian Association of Spatial Planners, now acting as a member of the board. She is also a guest lecturer on spatial planning in University of Tartu, Department of Geography.

Helen Sooväli-Sepping
Tallinn University
Tallinn University of Technology

Dr. Helen Sooväli-Sepping is Vice-Rector for Green Transition at Tallinn University of Technology. She is active in research, studying life quality in the urban environment and countryside. Helen is currently involved in the Horizon 2020 project GoGreen Routes. She is the Editor-in-chief of Estonian Human Development Report "Spatial Choices of an Urbanized Society" 2019/2020, which analyzed the urban and regional development in Estonia and proposed spatial development scenarios for future. The Estonian Human Development Report is a biennially published collection of articles reflecting and interpreting the current socio-economic situation in Estonia and possible future developments.
She holds Ph.D. in human geography from University of Tartu.