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Ullrika Sahlin

I am a lecturer in ecologic-economic modelling at Lund University. My research focus on the quantification of uncertainty and how uncertainty is used in decision making and in particular the management of environmental systems under varying strenghts in knowledge.

Uncertainty and Evidence Lab (UnEviL)

This research group focus on the management of uncertainty and evidence in risk analysis, evidence synthesis, decision analysis and, never the least, predictive sciences. This include discussing and applying principles and methods for learning, forecasting and decision analysis under different strengths in knowledge. We seek to apply the principles and methods on conceptual and actual problems and we are not limited to a specific application.

Key interests

Environmental decision making
Uncertainty in scientific assessments
Decision making under uncertainty
Bayesian analysis and its generalisation

Selected applications

• Ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes • Invasive species • Chemical safety • Honey bee health• Litter • Species conservation

Current activity: Lundaloppet Predictive Challenge - participants of the annual running race Lundaloppet are encouraged to guess their running time. The aim of the challenge is to study how good people are in being uncertain and get data to use in outreach events. Are you running this year - take part here

I am interested in hosting postdocs or guest researchers on the topic uncertainty or ecological-economic modelling - contact me

We have now published android versions of the games about uncertainty on google app store. They are found by searching for UncertainGames. There are five English (Quiztimate, BeanGuesser, ProbabilityGuess, Probability Bee and FrequencyGuesser) and one Swedish game (Gisso).

The games are possible to download for windows and mac.

https://uncertaingames.itch.io/

Workshops:

Quantifying uncertainty by precise and bounded probability. Berlin February 22nd

Uncertainty in scientific assessments South Africa Workshop Durban January

Quantifying uncertainty by probability. Lund October 10th. Stavanger November 7th.

Work interacting with stakeholders

A report on data collection and analysis of winter loss in Sweden is finished as part of the project Samverkan för god bihälsa - link here soon.

The project Gaming for better decisions under uncertainty is finished.

This is where you can download the risk analysis of signal crayfish report

Pollinera Sverige - Swedish pollination network • Independent expert in the MUST-B working group at EFSA • Risk analysis on the signal crayfish for the Swedish Water Agency • Past president of the Nordic Chapter of the Society for Risk Analysis • Understanding and controlling litter by understanding thrown gum in urban areas (pilot)

Work on promoting Bayesian methods in research - annual mini conference Bayes@Lund

Visit my blog Environmental Evidence Synthesis

Leadership

2018 President of the Swedish Society for Risk (Riskkollegiet)

2017 - Gamining for better decsions under uncertainty - Climate-KIC

2017 - Research group Uncertainty and Evidence Lab

2015 - 2017 President of the Nordic Chapter of the Society for Risk Analysis

2016 BECC action group: Evidence relying on simulation models and expert judgment.

2014 - 2018 Scaling up uncertain environmental evidence - Quality assurance in ecosystem service predictions (FORMAS project)

2015 STAKE Practices and barriers of stakeholder interaction – challenges for research projects

2014 Quality in knowledge - BECC action group

2012 - 2013 Towards decision making under uncertainty as part of PLANFISH.

2012 QSAR-integrated hazard and risk assessment, workpackage leader EU-project CADASTER.

Visits

2016 and 2017 Matthias Troffaes, Durham University, UK

2015 John-Paul Gosling at University of Leeds, UK.

As a postdoc I made the following visits:

2012-2014 Postdoc in economic-ecological modelling at Lund university Centre of Environmental and Climate research in SAPES research environment and EU-project Liberation.

2012-2013 Prof Hugh Possingham and Environmental Decision Group at University of Queensland, Australia (three months)

2010-2012 Linneaus University, Sweden. in the EU-project CADASTER on the quantification of uncertainty in QSARs for chemical regulation under REACH.

I also got inspiration from here:

Terje Aven, University of Stavanger

CSIRO, Hobart, Keith Hayes PhD, October – February 2006-07

Feb 2013 Terry Walsh at Australian Centre of Excellence for Risk Analysis (ACERA) at University of Melbourne, Australia.

Upcoming conferences

Bayes@Lund2019 7 May
SETAC 2019 - Helsinki
SIPTA July
Escape - pollination Lund October
Nordic Chapter Copenhagen Nov 7-8

Past conferences

Jont EFSA/Bfr International Conference on Uncertainty in Risk Analysis Feb 21-22 2019
SRA Nordic chapter Stavanger Nov 8-9 - I gave a tutorial here
EFSA Conference Sept 18-21
SRA Europe Östersund - June 2018
Bayes@2018 - April 12th 2018
CEE in Paris April
SRA Nordic chapter conference Finland Nov 2-3
BayesDays at Liverpool (I will give a tutorial on Quantifying uncertainty using data and experts see program)
SRA Europe Lissbon, Portugal 19-21 June
The Cambridge Risk and Uncertainty (RUC) Conference June 12-14th
Bayes@Lund2017 - for the 4th time on April 19th and 20th Twitter #bayeslund17
The Annual meeting of the Swedish Professional Beekepers, Nyköping 2017
SRA, San Diego, USA, December 2016 - uncertainty according to EFSA & what is robustness to uncertainty
ESREL Glasgow, UK, 25-29 September 2016 - paper on small data and conflicting information
SRA Nordic, Göteborg, Sweden, 14-15 November 2016 - the new SRA glossary
First International Conference of the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence, Stockholm, Sweden, 25-27th August, 2016
SRA Europe Bath, UK, 20-22nd June, 2016 - presentation on small data and statistics
Bayes@Lund2016 Feb 5th, Lund, Sweden. - what do we mean by evidence really?
SRA Nordic chapter conference Lund 16 - 17 November
ESREL 2015 7-10 September 2015
WPMSIIP 8th Workshop on Principles and Methods of Statistical Inference with Interval Probability, Munich Sept 5th 2015.
SETAC Europe 25th Annual Meeting in Barcelona, Spain, 3 - 7 May 2015, Julia held an excellent presenation of what we call Information Quality Impact Analysis
The European Climate Change Adaptation Conference (ECCA) 2015 12-14 May. Poster “Who decides the treatment of knowledge-based uncertainty – decision makers, assessors or the epistemic situation?”
SRA Europe Maastricht 15-17 June 2015 - The Nordic Chapter under SRA Europe is now up an running.

Education and awards

I have a Master of Science in Mathematics with a major in Mathematical Statistics, Lund University 2003. My Master thesis "Analysis of forest field data with a spatial approach" was awarded Sparbanksstiftelsen Skåne Nova scholarship on 25 000 SEK 2004. I also have a Master of Science in Forestry with a major in Forest management, Swedish Agricultural and Forest University, 2000. My master thesis "Modelling spatial variability in low temperature at a landscape level" was awarded Arvid Lindman scholarship on 25 000 SEK in 2001.

2010 I defended my PhD thesis From data to decision - learning by probabilistic risk analysis of biological invasions. Prof Hugh Possingham was my opponent.

Award in the images of risk competition at ESREL 2016 of my image "The probablity of a unique event".

I received the Richard J. Burk Outstanding Service Award from the Society for Risk Analysis 2016.

Appointed Docent in Environmental Science at Lund university June 2017. The Swedish title Docent corresponds to Assciate Professor in the US or Reader in the UK. Here is a link to my docenture lecture.