Falling Walls Falling Walls Science Summit 2023

Environmental Justice: Falling Walls Breakthrough Conversation with Sunil Amrith

Sunil Amrith, Alina Schadwinkel

2022 Breakthrough Conversations Science Breakthrough of the Year Social Sciences & Humanities

In this Falling Walls Breakthrough Conversation, digital participants had the chance to engage in a live conversation with Sunil Amrith, Falling Walls Breakthrough of the Year 2022 in the category of Social Sciences and Humanities. He talked about his work as a historian of South and Southeast Asia, his appeal for a new perspective on environmental history and how he connects environmental justice to the history of migration.

The interview series provided an intimate personal atmosphere, in which high-level guests, speakers and panelists of the Falling Walls Science Summit 2022 talked about their individual research, career paths and experiences.

The Falling Walls Breakthrough Conversations are supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and Springer Nature.

Bram Belloni/Heineken Prizes

Sunil Amrith

Yale University

Sunil Amrith is the Renu and Anand Dhawan Professor of History at Yale University, He is the author of four books, including Unruly Waters (2018) and Crossing the Bay of Bengal (2013). His work connects environmental history with the history of migration, with a focus on South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Indian Ocean. Amrith is the receipient of the 2016 Infosys Prize in Humanities, a 2017 MacArthur Fellowship, and the 2022 A.H. Heineken Prize for History. He is currently writing The Ruins of Freedom: An Environmental History of the Modern World. Sunil Amrith grew up in Singapore, studied at the University of Cambridge, and has taught at Birkbeck College, University of London, and at Harvard University.

Simon Koy

Alina Schadwinkel

Springer Nature

Alina was born in 1987 and  studied science journalism with a focus on life sciences/medicine at TU Dortmund University. From 2009 to 2010, she was a trainee at »ZEIT Online« andthen freelance for various media and ZEIT editor from 2011 to 2012. Until 2013, Alina was deputy head of the life sciences department of the »New Scientist«. Subsequently six weeks with the IJP in South Africa. From October 2013 to December 2019, she was editor in the science department of »ZEIT Online« in Berlin. From then on, Managing Editor Online of »Spektrum der Wissenschaft«. Alina is the winner of the Georg von Holtzbrinck Prize for Science Journalism 2014 in the category of young talent and was awarded Top 30 under 30 of the year 2015. She was also nominated for the Grimme Online Award in the same year for the dossier on Down’s syndrome »Wer darf Leben?« and in 2021, awarded the »Prize for Science Journalism» of the DGK.

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