Hi everyone! My name is Emily Olsen. I am currently a Transatlantic Fellow at Worlds of Contradiction (WOC) in the University of Bremen. I work with Prof. Dr. Alisha Heinemann and Prof. Dr. Ingo Warnke at WOC and am part of Prof. Heinemann’s team in the ITB/FB12. I am from the west coast of the United States, growing up between Seattle, Washington, and Portland, Oregon. I fell in love with the natural world when I was a kid, and my love for the more-than-human world only grew as I grew older. My favorite activities are walking/hiking, paying special attention to the plants and birds, and anything involving water, whether that is just visiting the ocean, paddleboarding/boating, or swimming. I completed a BS in General Biology at Portland State University in Portland, Oregon; an MA in Teaching for high school Biology; an MS in Environmental Education, both from Southern Oregon University; and a PhD in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in Science Education from The Pennsylvania State University in Pennsylvania. I am an environmental educator (since 2015) and scholar, and I focus on affective (emotion-based) pedagogies in environmental and climate change education. While I am here, I hope to work with German youth, including those who have migrated to Germany from other countries, to investigate how affective pedagogies can be used to navigate inherent contradictions in the realm of climate change, to help support youth well-being and sustain climate change action in the community.
The first World Youth Forum Grant has been awarded to Ms Sphosethu Fela, a PhD student from the University KwaZulu-Natal. Sphosethu Fela has been born in 1995 in Steynburg, South Africa. She holds a Masters degree in Theology which she has obtained at the School of Religion, Philosophy, and Social Science in May 2025, also at the University of KwaZulu-Natal.
At Bremen University, Sphosethu Fela conducts a considerable part of her doctoral research. Her PhD thesis is exploring the entanglements of science and religion in making sense of obstetric violence. More specifically, Sphosethu is working on the question of how 18th-century imperial religion perspectives on the black female has shaped and continues to shape healthcare practices towards black women in South Africa.
In her study she argues that the current lack of persistently decent obstetric healthcare offered to black women in South Africa stems not just from poor service delivery and the lack of resources in public hospitals, but also from a series of medico-philosophical and theological-inflected view about the female body, and about the black female body in particular.
The purpose of her study is to better understand the view and perspectives of healthcare providers and how they make sense of obstetric neglect or inequality in relation to black women and to understand what role, if any, their faith, moral view and culture has on how they navigate the complexities of their work space.
Sphosethu’s work is supervised by Professor Federico Settler and Professor Rozena Maart, both from KwaZulu-Natal University. During her stay in Bremen, she receives scientific support and guidance from Dr. Cordula Weißköppel, member of faculty 09 (cultural sciences) as well as PD Dr. Ehler Voss, Managing Director of Worlds of Contradiction (WOC).