Dr. Milena Groß
Werdegang
10/2019–02/2021 nexus Insitut für Kooperationsmanagement und interdisziplinäre Forschung, Berlin, Deutschland, wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin
10/2015–06/2017 Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Deutschland, und Arizona State University, Tempe, USA, Double degree Master of Science: Global Sustainability Science
08/2016–12/2016 Studentin an der Arizona State University; DAAD-Stipentiatin
10/2011–03/2015 Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Deutschland, Bachelor of Science: Major in Umweltwissenschaften, Minor in Wirtschaftspsychologie
01/2014–06/2014 Studentin an der Kristianstad Universität, Schweden, Erasmus-Stipendiatin
Projekte
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DFG-Forschungsgruppe „Die Rolle der Natur für das menschliche Wohlergehen im sozial-ökologischen System des Kilimandscharo (Kili-SES)“ - Teilprojekt 3: „Understanding social-ecological transformations: the role of initiatives’ values, rules and knowledge“
Berta Martín-López (Wissenschaftliche Projektleiter*in) , Milena Groß (Wissenschaftliche Projektleiter*in)
→Projekt: Forschung
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DFG-Forschungsgruppe 5064: Die Rolle der Natur für das menschliche Wohlergehen im sozial-ökologischen System des Kilimandscharo - Teilprojekt 3: Nachfrage und Werte von Nature's Contributions to People (NCP)
Berta Martín-López (Wissenschaftliche Projektleiter*in) , Milena Groß (Projektmitarbeiter*in) , Jasmine Pearson (Projektmitarbeiter*in) , John Julius (Projektmitarbeiter*in)
→Projekt: Forschung
Publikationen
Beiträge in Zeitschriften
- Mapping the supply of nature’s contributions to people on Mount Kilimanjaro
Netra Bhandari (Autor*in) , Neema Robert Kinabo (Autor*in) , Dominic Andreas Martin (Autor*in) , Andrea Larissa Boesing (Autor*in) , Margot Neyret (Autor*in) , Gaëlle Bocksberger (Autor*in) , Jörg Albrecht (Autor*in) , Tim Appelhans (Autor*in) , Ugo Arbieu (Autor*in) , Joscha N. Becker (Autor*in) , Giovanni Bianco (Autor*in) , Robert Modest Byamungu (Autor*in) , Alice Classen (Autor*in) , M. Eugenia Degano (Autor*in) , Friederike Gebert (Autor*in) , Milena Groß (Autor*in) , Claudia Hemp (Autor*in) , Victoria Junquera (Autor*in) , Ralf Kiese (Autor*in) , Koggani D Koggani (Autor*in) , Armin Komposch (Autor*in) , Yakov Kuzyakov (Autor*in) , Dickson Gerald Mauki (Autor*in) , Antonia V. Mayr (Autor*in) , Thomas Müller (Autor*in) , Henry K. Njovu (Autor*in) , Insa Otte (Autor*in) , Jasmine Pearson (Autor*in) , Marcell K. Peters (Autor*in) , John Sanya (Autor*in) , Matthias Schleuning (Autor*in) , Ingolf Steffan-Dewenter (Autor*in) , Maximilian G. R. Vollstaedt (Autor*in) , Jie Zhang (Autor*in) , Katrin Böhning-Gaese (Autor*in) , Markus Fischer (Autor*in) , Andreas Hemp (Autor*in) , Peter K. Manning (Autor*in) , Dirk Zeuss (Autor*in) , 14.03.2026 , in: Environmental Research Letters, 21, 5 , 16 S.Publikation: Beiträge in Zeitschriften › Kommentare / Debatten / Berichte › Forschung
- Understanding preferences for nature's contributions to people between and within social actors sheds insights for inclusive conservation
Milena Groß (Autor*in) , Tuyeni Heita Mwampamba (Autor*in) , John Julius (Autor*in) , Jasmine Pearson (Autor*in) , Jennifer Sesabo (Autor*in) , Berta Martín-López (Autor*in) , 01.01.2026 , in: People and Nature, 8, 1 , S. 65-80 , 16 S.Publikation: Beiträge in Zeitschriften › Zeitschriftenaufsätze › Forschung › begutachtet
- Practical implementation of artificial intelligence for climate change mitigation in cities – priorities, collaborations and challenges
Marie Josefine Hintz (Autor*in) , Milena Groß (Autor*in) , Felix Creutzig (Autor*in) , Lynn H. Kaack (Autor*in) , 01.01.2026 , in: Energy Research and Social Science, 131 , 15 S.Publikation: Beiträge in Zeitschriften › Zeitschriftenaufsätze › Forschung › begutachtet
- The questions we ask matter: insights from place-based research on nature’s contributions to people
Milena Groß (Autor*in) , Daria Shepeleva (Autor*in) , Friederike Vogel (Autor*in) , Tuyeni Heita Mwampamba (Autor*in) , Ugo Arbieu (Autor*in) , Jasmine Pearson (Autor*in) , Jennifer Kasanda Sesabo (Autor*in) , Fabia Codalli (Autor*in) , Berta Martín-López (Autor*in) , 01.09.2025 , in: Sustainability Science, 20, 5 , S. 1723-1738 , 16 S.Publikation: Beiträge in Zeitschriften › Zeitschriftenaufsätze › Forschung › begutachtet
- Broadening the Justifications for Inclusive Conservation: Values Associated With Nature's Contributions to People
Milena Groß (Autor*in) , Henrik von Wehrden (Autor*in) , Tuyeni Heita Mwampamba (Autor*in) , John Julius (Autor*in) , Jasmine Pearson (Autor*in) , Jennifer Kasanda Sesabo (Autor*in) , Maraja Riechers (Autor*in) , Ugo Arbieu (Autor*in) , Katrin Böhning-Gaese (Autor*in) , Berta Martín-López (Autor*in) , 01.09.2025 , in: Conservation Letters, 18, 5 , 8 S.Publikation: Beiträge in Zeitschriften › Zeitschriftenaufsätze › Forschung › begutachtet
Lehrveranstaltungen
⌄
IMPORTANT: our first introductory session is on the 10th April, Friday, at 9.30.
Please make sure you attend this introductory meeting as all other tasks will depend on information you gain in this meeting and we will talk about the pecha kucha examination format.
Students are now in four different groups:
1) Butterflies
2) Pollinators
3) Outreach and connection to nature
4) Camera traps
In this semester you will develop your plans you started for the posters in the winter and sample the orchard with your goals in mind.
We are currently losing pollinators, the bees and the flies and the butterflies, in our intensively managed landscapes and we need theses organisms not least to feed ourselves. What can we do? Come and help us to restore, study and manage cultural landscapes that can provide us with both food and the diversity of life!
One of the most important challenges of our time is how to combine biodiversity and food security, as our human population and our influence on the biophysical basis of our existence on earth increases. Many people are no longer connected to nature, and feel alienated from natural processes and places. Our activities are causing major biodiversity decline that in turn affects how our ecosystems that we depend on function and the services they provide for us humans. Although our influence is often negative, there are many ways in which we can have positive effects on biodiversity as well as ensuring food security is possible.
What can we do?
This course combines key aspects of biodiversity conservation and
ecological restoration of degraded ecosystems with the extensive management of cultural landscapes. The latter provide us with food and resources whilst at the same time fostering biodiversity. It is also highly relevant for the topic of sustainable consumption, as it instills in participants the value of extensively managed landscapes that cannot provide us with huge bumper harvests but are more resilient in face of climate change and provide much more habitat for many species to co-exist with us.
In this planning seminar, we will plan projects in detail. Our baseline project is a wonderful cultural landscape site near the village of Wendisch-Evern, where together with the a traditional orchard club (Streuobstwiesenverein) in November 2016 we restored an apple (and cherry and pear) orchard to a degraded horse paddock with low biodiversity and high nutrients in the soils (not good for biodiversity).
Since the restoration action we have been doing two main things with different student cohorts:
1) tracking how the plants and animals change at the site over time; we expect that the biodiversity of plants and insects and birds will increase over time, as we remove nutrients by mowing or grazing the site and this is good for promoting more plant and hence also animal species.
2) We are testing whether we can attract even more insects to the site but planting different grassland plants under each of the 15 apple trees; more tasty clover and co species (Klee) or forbs species that attract pollinators but are not quite as tasty as the clover and co species.
This is the first time that anybody has studied this option scientifically in a traditional orchard, and if it works, it may be a nice option for attracting more pollinators to many other orchard sites.
We are embedded in a cultural landscape including returning wolves and a shephard who does not want to have her sheep at our site - there are plenty of socio-ecological topics within the overall topic of the magic orchard and its transformation over time.
GENERAL INFO:
This course is one several different courses in the sustainability minor (sustainable consumption, sustainable governance, life cycles)- you need to choose one of the main courses and then you stick to this course over two years. This course in the summer semester, Module 3 and 4, takes place in the third semester of your minor.
Building on the preceding modules introducing you to transdisciplinary research and projects, and to the key concepts and methods in ecological restoration, this semester you take part in this seminar that moves into the more active sphere.
Please make sure you attend this introductory meeting as all other tasks will depend on information you gain in this meeting and we will talk about the pecha kucha examination format.
Students are now in four different groups:
1) Butterflies
2) Pollinators
3) Outreach and connection to nature
4) Camera traps
In this semester you will develop your plans you started for the posters in the winter and sample the orchard with your goals in mind.
We are currently losing pollinators, the bees and the flies and the butterflies, in our intensively managed landscapes and we need theses organisms not least to feed ourselves. What can we do? Come and help us to restore, study and manage cultural landscapes that can provide us with both food and the diversity of life!
One of the most important challenges of our time is how to combine biodiversity and food security, as our human population and our influence on the biophysical basis of our existence on earth increases. Many people are no longer connected to nature, and feel alienated from natural processes and places. Our activities are causing major biodiversity decline that in turn affects how our ecosystems that we depend on function and the services they provide for us humans. Although our influence is often negative, there are many ways in which we can have positive effects on biodiversity as well as ensuring food security is possible.
What can we do?
This course combines key aspects of biodiversity conservation and
ecological restoration of degraded ecosystems with the extensive management of cultural landscapes. The latter provide us with food and resources whilst at the same time fostering biodiversity. It is also highly relevant for the topic of sustainable consumption, as it instills in participants the value of extensively managed landscapes that cannot provide us with huge bumper harvests but are more resilient in face of climate change and provide much more habitat for many species to co-exist with us.
In this planning seminar, we will plan projects in detail. Our baseline project is a wonderful cultural landscape site near the village of Wendisch-Evern, where together with the a traditional orchard club (Streuobstwiesenverein) in November 2016 we restored an apple (and cherry and pear) orchard to a degraded horse paddock with low biodiversity and high nutrients in the soils (not good for biodiversity).
Since the restoration action we have been doing two main things with different student cohorts:
1) tracking how the plants and animals change at the site over time; we expect that the biodiversity of plants and insects and birds will increase over time, as we remove nutrients by mowing or grazing the site and this is good for promoting more plant and hence also animal species.
2) We are testing whether we can attract even more insects to the site but planting different grassland plants under each of the 15 apple trees; more tasty clover and co species (Klee) or forbs species that attract pollinators but are not quite as tasty as the clover and co species.
This is the first time that anybody has studied this option scientifically in a traditional orchard, and if it works, it may be a nice option for attracting more pollinators to many other orchard sites.
We are embedded in a cultural landscape including returning wolves and a shephard who does not want to have her sheep at our site - there are plenty of socio-ecological topics within the overall topic of the magic orchard and its transformation over time.
GENERAL INFO:
This course is one several different courses in the sustainability minor (sustainable consumption, sustainable governance, life cycles)- you need to choose one of the main courses and then you stick to this course over two years. This course in the summer semester, Module 3 and 4, takes place in the third semester of your minor.
Building on the preceding modules introducing you to transdisciplinary research and projects, and to the key concepts and methods in ecological restoration, this semester you take part in this seminar that moves into the more active sphere.