Dr Kamila Svobodova specialises in mine closure, environmental psychology and regional planning. Her expertise is in understanding and applying a multicomponent approach when designing a complex post-mining landscape.

Researcher biography

Kamila’s main research interest is in various dimensions of mine closure. She is interested in global as well as local studies, multi-stakeholder collaboration, community perception, data and planning of mine closure. Her major projects have included: Potential post-mining land use outcomes and collaborative opportunities in major mining regions of Queensland; Capacity of mining regions to transition to closure; The social and environmental complexities of energy transition; Stakeholder attitudes and knowledge of coal mining in Australia; Understanding the complexity of policy-making processes across coal mining regions in Australia, Poland and the Czech Republic; Cultural ecosystem services provided by rehabilitated quarries in European urban and peri-urban areas.

Kamila joined CSRM as a research fellow in February 2019. She is a landscape engineer and a PhD in architecture and urbanism. From 2013 to 2019, she worked as a researcher at the Czech University of Life Sciences where she focused on mine rehabilitation in research and teaching. Kamila was awarded by European Commission to study socio-economic rehabilitation after quarrying during her Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship in the scheme of prestigious Horizon 2020. She also received an Endeavour Research Fellowship awarded by Australian Government to conduct her research on stakeholder attitudes towards mining at Monash University.

Kamila holds qualification in education. She has supervised a number of Master and PhD students in their theses and taught courses such as Land Reclamation, Landscape Planning, GIS and Urbanism at the Czech University of Life Sciences and Czech Technical University in Prague. Kamila is a member of the International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE) and the Association for Urbanism and Urban Planning of the Czech Republic (UUAP).

Beside her academic career, Kamila worked as an urban planner and a GIS specialist in several private companies, and participated in various regional development planning projects.

Kamila’s research projects involve collaboration with other SMI research centres. She has also engaged in collaborative research with investigators from Monash University, Federation University, the University of Copenhagen, the Silesian University, Charles University, the University of Göttingen, and TU Bergakademie Freiberg.