Dona Barirani completed her PhD at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Netherlands. Her research focuses on the change and integration of international environmental institutions in global governance. She explored the emergence of treaty regimes, inter-institutional relationships across environmental law, and their connections beyond environmental boundaries, using the Sustainable Development Goals and both the international food and fisheries regime as reference points.
Dona has experience working as a policy specialist at a Dutch professional association, collaborating with SMEs and multinational companies in the Netherlands. She also taught at the Copernicus Institute as a junior teacher for the Environmental Governance and Innovation Studies sections and worked with environmental organizations. Additionally, she chaired the SENSE PhD Council, the Netherlands’ nationwide Research School for Socio-Economic and Natural Sciences of the Environment, for two years.
Dona holds a PhD in Political Science from Utrecht University, an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Vienna, and a B.A. in Social Sciences and Philosophy from the University of Siegen. She also conducted research at the Université de Genève. During her Master’s studies, she examined the regime of agricultural biotechnology, international political economy, and biodiversity conflicts.
She co-managed the Taskforce on Earth System Law, a global research initiative under the Earth System Governance Project, focusing on interdisciplinary research in sustainability law and governance.