Dr. Maren M. Michaelsen is a Research Affiliate at ISDC. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Institute for Integrative Health Care and Health Promotion in the Faculty of Health at Witten/Herdecke University, where she works as a behavioural economist on a “Nudging for health” project in an interdisciplinary team.
Her research interests are (mental) health, mindfulness and behaviour change in conflict and peaceful environments. Her methodological repertoire comprises of modern empirical econometric approaches, systematic reviews and narrative model development.
Maren has published in peer-reviewed international journals, such as the Economics of Education Reviewand a book chapter on the Mexican violent conflicts in “Economic Aspects of Genocides, Other Mass Atrocities, and Their Prevention”, edited by Charles H. Anderton and Jurgen Brauer, and has presented at international conferences of different disciplines, including economics, peace science, social psychology and medicine.
Previous to her current position, Maren spent three years on practicing and teaching meditation and yoga (including a 6-months silence retreat in Nepal) which had profound impact on how she sees herself and others. This experience allows her to view decision-making, behaviour and happiness from different angles. She finished her PhD in economics from Ruhr University Bochum where she was assistant professor for 1.5 years.
