Meet the PhD students in the EPHEMERAL project

Anna Petra

I was born and grew up in the Italian Dolomites, in an entirely mountainous province, where opportunities and constraints for the communities are strictly correlated to the place they are located. My interest has developed in the observation of the peculiar characteristics and dynamics of this territory, bringing me to a place-based and interdisciplinary perspective. 
My academic path includes a Bachelor´s Degree in Political Science, International Relations and Human Right, and a Master´s Degree in Management for Sustainable Firms. I had the chance to connect public policy, environmental law, social and environmental justice and business management for sustainable transition. 
This project aims to examine how entrepreneurship is framed within rural regions - “left behind places”- and how these framing become politically across different territories narratives. It explores how competing visions of rural development shape the perceived role of businesses and influence entrepreneurial legitimacy, mobilization and resources reconfigurations, particularly in relation to sustainability and ongoing environmental and social transitions.
The project tries to focus on how narratives of place shape what kinds of entrepreneurial action are seen as possible, desirable or legitimate in peripheral territories, including how sustainability expectations are interpreted and mobilized in practice. 

Elham Nadermohammadi

I am Elham Nadermohammadi, a PhD researcher at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. I work on social innovation in rural areas as part of the EPHEMERAL Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network.
My interest in rural places grew from my background in cultural heritage and tourism. Over time, I became more interested in how people connect with places through stories, memories, everyday life, and local identities.
What first drew me to rural areas was their potential. I often wondered how different these places might look if they had received the right support, opportunities, and attention. For many years, hardworking people have lived in rural communities, but limited services, fewer job opportunities, and the pull of larger cities have pushed many of them to leave. This made me think more deeply about why rural places need care, not only as physical spaces, but as communities shaped by people’s lives, work, and memories.
In my PhD, I explore how rural communities respond to change, create new forms of collaboration, and use local knowledge and networks to shape their own futures. I am especially interested in looking at rural places not only through their challenges, but also through the people, relationships, and local strengths that keep them alive.
My research is supervised by Prof. Tialda Haartsen and Dr. Koen Salemink at the University of Groningen, with Dr. Néstor Vercher as my international supervisor within the EPHEMERAL network.
What motivates me personally is the question of how people can enjoy, learn from, and contribute to rural places without damaging the social, cultural, and environmental qualities that make them meaningful. Through my work, I hope to listen to, learn from, and help tell the stories of rural places and the people who call them home.
For me, rural change is about more than solving problems. It is about understanding what makes a place matter to people, and how change can happen without losing the stories, relationships, and identities that give it meaning.

Faidah Mardika

Faidah has been a research consultant for program development, monitoring and evaluations for humanitarian programs in Indonesia. Her strong expertise is to translate empirical research finding into policy and program intervention especially in rural and small islands area. 
In this project she investigates how structural changes like digitalizations that happened over time at the social level shape and radically change the dynamics of entrepreneurship in small islands. It includes creating new opportunities, diversifying resources and different modes of work for entrepreneurship. While small islands with remoteness as their structural dimension,  these dynamics can significantly change their identity and societal system. 

In exploring this untouched part of small islands and entrepreneurship studies, she will conduct qualitative research between the Netherlands, Denmark and Croatia. She is utilizing one of participatory approaches to get strong and deeper perspectives from small island entrepreneurs as a community system. 

Host Institution: University of Groningen
Secondment Institutions: Ivo Pilar Institute, University of Southern Denmark
Supervisory Team: Prof. Sierdjan Koster, Dr. Koen Salemink, Dr. Anita Busljeta Toncovic

Florencia Alvarez

Born and raised in a small town in Uruguay, I grew up deeply connected to nature and local cultural traditions. This early environment sparked my interest in the social sciences, ultimately leading me to the University of Bristol, where I earned my Master’s in Sustainable Futures.
My professional journey bridges community action and high-level policy. I have extensive experience designing and managing business support programs for youth and SMEs. Additionally, I have evaluated innovation and development policies across South America, working closely with public-private partnerships.
Currently, my research focuses on support policies for rural entrepreneurship. I examine how multi-level governance shapes territories facing structural challenges like depopulation and economic stagnation. By drawing on empirical evidence from Spain and the United Kingdom, my work will aim to champion a place-based approach to rural policy, exploring the vital link between institutional support and real-world entrepreneurial agency.

Johannes Temm

Based at University of Aveiro, my research project explores the role of agrifood networks in shaping rural places and place identities by (re)configuring alternatives for entrepreneurship among local producers. Throughout my work, I have been inspired by how smallholder rural producers ‘champion’ different narratives and framings in efforts to mobilise (new) development pathways and influence social-environmental outcomes. Seeing the importance of social networks in these efforts has motivated me to try and better understand how agrifood networks shape rural stakeholders’ agency and entrepreneurial identity.

Even for an ‘emptying’ rural Portugal, many alternative food networks have illustrated the great potential for improved ‘valorisation’ of rural agrifood products, especially through conveying specific representations of their products, places, and livelihoods. Nonetheless, unequal influence and representation within networks can also create barriers for promoting/asserting alternative biocultural values. My research thus aims to clarify how to strengthen effective and equitable relationship structures within contemporary agrifood systems. Applying a mixed-method approach, I explore the relational dimension of place identities and critically assess options for supporting rural producers in sustainable place-based entrepreneurship.

Sofia Motta

I'm a PhD researcher at SDU studying how renewable energy investments land in rural communities, and why, even in places like Denmark with decades of experience, locally rooted models remain the exception.
My research focuses on rural Denmark, with some cases from other European countries, tracing how actors organise, negotiate, and experiment around energy projects over time, and what enables some arrangements to become genuinely embedded in local life while others don't. As the energy transition accelerates across Europe, I believe that the social side of it deserves as much attention as the technical one.
I grew up in Umbria, a rural region in central Italy known as the green heart of the country. My path has been interdisciplinary, as I obtained a Bachelor’s in languages and linguistics, and later a double Master's in European and International Studies across Italy and Czech Republic, three years teaching, a stint in finance in Hungary, and an internship at the Italian Embassy in Prague covering space and scientific diplomacy and co-hosting a podcast.