In this edition of the CALAS-HIAS Fellowship, we are pleased to welcome Prof. Dr. Isabel Rodríguez Peña from the Faculty of Economics at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) to the University of Kassel.
Prof. Rodríguez Peña holds a PhD in Economics from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM) and completed postdoctoral research stays at Freie Universität Berlin and El Colegio de México. Since 2022, she has been a member of Mexico’s Sistema Nacional de Investigadores (SNI). Her research focuses on the political economy of energy and extractivism in Latin America, with particular attention to the tensions between energy security, energy transition, and socio-ecological conflicts related to hydrocarbons and critical minerals. By combining macroeconomic analysis with perspectives from political ecology and public policy analysis, her work contributes to current debates on the challenges and possibilities of a more socially just energy transition.
During her stay at the University of Kassel, Prof. Rodríguez Peña will teach the German-language block seminar “Transitions in Tension: Energie, Extraktivismus & Umweltgerechtigkeit in Lateinamerika” (Thursdays, 10:00 a.m.–2:00 p.m., from 4 June to 16 July 2026), offered within the MA programme “Political Science – Critique, Domination, Transformation” as well as in the teaching pool of FB 05.
We warmly welcome her to Kassel and look forward to the contributions her work will make to academic exchange and discussion within our university community.
