Isabel Pacheco

I was born and raised in Munich, Germany. I did my Bachelor's and Master’s at the LMU Munich, and an Erasmus in Ireland and another in Spain. In October 2022 I started a PhD in environmental psychology. Before I moved to Groningen I had never been to the Netherlands, luckily I like it!

With my work, I hope to contribute to creating a more sustainable future, both environmentally and socially. By understanding people’s motivations and behaviour regarding sustainability better, I can also help facilitate increasing sustainable behaviour and in that way reduce environmental problems and the social injustice they cause. More specifically, I hope to show that everyone can contribute to a more sustainable future, not only through their consumption but also through other behaviours, i.e. citizenship behaviours.

Besides doing my research project, I can develop myself professionally through the CPS courses, KLI courses, and summer schools. Here, I enjoy that I can choose what I want to focus on, whether that is theorising, statistics, time management, or feeling less like an imposter. I teach different courses and that also leads to personal development, although more implicitly.

I am extremely happy with where I work. I feel like everyone is always very positive, open, supportive, really helpful, and enjoys working here. The university supports my well-being and work-life balance in various ways. For extra support, I can meet up to six times with a psychologist. For less intense support there is the PhD support group that helps you to manage your PhD tasks as well as life (hardships). Further, there’s the ombudsperson and a confidential advisor. For me, though, I think my supervisors and colleagues are doing a great job at supporting me so that I do not need extra help from other staff.