Presentation

Rico’s main professional field is climate adaptation. At the Emergency & Risk Management education at University College Copenhagen, his primary task is to participate in research projects. Among other things, he is the project leader in the research projects LostToClimate (Addressing Unavoidable Non-Economic Losses to Climate-Induced Events for Communities in the Arctic, 2025-29) and CliCNord (Climate Change Resilience in Small Communities in the Nordic Countries, 2021-24). Rico is the education's representative in the research network COPE (Copenhagen Center for Disaster Research). Besides, he teaches in qualitative methodologies, climate, disaster cycle management, and innovation, as well as supervision of students.

Rico has a Ph.D. from the UNEP DTU Partnership, which is a collaboration between the UN Environmental Program and the Technical University of Denmark. The focal point of the dissertation was climate change, but with a special focus on forest and agricultural areas in tropical regions. The Ph.D. included, among other things, eight months of fieldwork in Belize, Central America. Rico holds a master's degree in Geography & Geoinformatics from the University of Copenhagen. His profile from here is a mixture of environmental, social, and natural geographical subjects as well as geoinformatics. A common focal point has been the environment and developing countries, and primarily the impact of climate change on developing countries. His thesis dealt with deforestation, and the fieldwork took place in Ghana.

Rico has previously been a research assistant in the Global Land Project at the University of Copenhagen (geography), and lecturer/coordinator on a master's course in Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) at the National University of Ireland in Galway (NUIG). Here he taught various topics related to climate change, agriculture, and food security (e.g. deforestation, land rights, land-use change, and climate policy). Rico has previously also taught at RUC, Absalon, and Bagsværd Gymnasium, where he primarily taught geography-related topics. Originally, he is a trained teacher, which he worked as for eight years, teaching a wide range of subjects.