A nutritionist and A Postdoc Research Fellow in Health science. My research interests lie primarily in the role of dietary factors on the cardiometabolic diseases, mainly cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes.
Coordinator of UEF/Africa Pilot – Southern African and Finnish Higher Education Institutions’ for Health and Well-being network (SAFINET) for Facilitating collaboration between Southern African and UEF’s academia in Health science.
The study focuses on perceptions and representations of old age and dementia. The main aim of the research project is to make visible those cultural practices and discourses that produce marginalising stereotypes and stigmatise aging people, by means of deconstruction and critical approach. The examination of two cultural spheres, Finnish and Russian, both together and apart, will help in discovering and deconstructing cultural stereotypes.
Binod Kafle holds an M.Sc. in Wood Materials Science from the University of Eastern Finland (2021-2023) and an M.Sc. in Agriculture Extension (2005-2007) from the Institute of Agriculture and Animal Science (IAAS), Tribhuvan University (TU), Nepal. With a diverse professional background, Binod has worked as a Project Coordinator, Agricultural Scientist, Social Development Specialist, and in Customer Service in various organizations in Nepal, Denmark, and Finland during 2006 to 2023. His research focuses on agriculture and wood materials, including studies on the adoption and diffusion of organic vegetables, improved maize varieties, improved potato varieties, the development of agro-technologies for livelihood enhancement, and the growth of fungi on wood biochar. He has authored several publications on topics such as socio-economic assessments of improved maize varieties, the adoption of improved potato varieties, the diffusion of early rice varieties, and organic vegetable farming.
Blas Mola-Yudego is a Professor at the School of Forest Sciences, University of Eastern Finland (UEF), and an Associate Professor at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU). He leads the Biomass Production and Plantation Forestry research group. His research focuses on sustainable biomass production for energy, encompassing forest management and fast-growing plantations. He examines the environmental, economic, and social dimensions of biomass production, with particular interest in risk analysis and modeling related to ecosystem services and natural disturbances related to biomass production systems.
He is responsible for introductory courses to science and statistical methods in forests sciences, as well as advanced courses in biomass production and bioenergy markets. He has surpervised a number of MSc and DSc candidates, as well as acted as PI or WP leader in several international projects. He keeps close cooperation with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Sweden), the University of Chile, the University of La Frontera (Chile), the Forest Science and Technology Centre of Catalonia (Spain) and the Northwest A&F University (China). He actively collaborates with other institutions across Europe. Blas Mola-Yudego is featured in the Stanford University World’s Top 2% Scientists lists.
Biomass Production and Plantation Forestry: https://sites.uef.fi/biopro/
This research area focuses on the effects of forest management, forest use and climate change on the carbon dynamics, structure and ecosystem services of forests, such as the production of forest biomass, biodiversity, forest carbon sequestration and recreational use.
Brexit provides an excellent opportunity to examine how the formal (state) and informal (social) processes of border-making relate to each other and play out in the everyday life of those impacted by this historic change. As the transitionary period after UK’s exit from the EU ends in December 2020, it is important to discuss the impact of the Brexit process from a migrant perspective. The prolonged uncertainty has already had an impact on the lives of intra-European migrants at multiple levels: for their legal status and rights as residents, for their work opportunities and career prospects and for identity and the sense of belonging and feeling of social inclusion to their host societies – be they the UK for the Nordic migrants or any of the other EU countries for the Brits.
UEF is host to several research projects that focus on the impact of Brexit on intra-European migrants. Dr. Tiina Sotkasiira has interviewed Finns living in Scotland and England as a part of her research on Brexit and Finns in Britain and Dr. Saara Koikkalainen has collected data among Nordic nationals in London . Together with two colleagues, researcher Peter Holley and Dr. Nicol Savinetti, Dr. Koikkalainen has also conducted a survey among Brits living in Europe (n=752).
