Dr. Katrin Kohnert has been a Scientific Associate at the office of the Council of Experts on Climate Change (ERK) since November 2021. Previously, she worked at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries on climate change-induced changes in water bodies, in particular on greenhouse gas exchange between water bodies and the atmosphere. As part of her doctorate, she studied greenhouse gas emissions from Arctic permafrost regions as a Research Assistant at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences. She received her doctorate in Environmental Sciences from the Technical University of Braunschweig and studied Geoecology and Global Change Ecology at the University of Bayreuth with a semester abroad at the University of Iceland in Reykjavík.

Cynthia Schmitt has been responsible for Communications as well as for the publications of the Council of Experts on Climate Change (ERK) since October 2022. As a North American Studies and German Studies student, she completed a DAAD-funded Bachelor Plus at Leipzig University with a study visit and publishing internship in the United States. During her Master’s at the Free University of Berlin, she worked for the Chair of the American Literature Department at the John F. Kennedy Institute (JFKI) and supported numerous German and English-language publication projects both organizationally and as an editor.

Bettina Dames has been working as team assistant and office administrator at the Council of Experts on Climate Change (ERK) since August 2025. The trained graphic designer completed her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Arts and Design at the Vorarlberg University of Applied Sciences in Austria. She spent her semester abroad in England at the Manchester School of Art. For many years she worked in design agencies in Germany and Liechtenstein, focusing on corporate and trade fair design.