Before working at the Knowledge, Technology and Innovation Group (KTI) of Wageningen University, Birgit worked as freelance researcher, teacher and illustrator (2015-2019) at “Kuwona – Advice, Training & Illustrations”.
She conducted her post-doctoral research at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) with the Poverty, Gender, Impact and Innovation team on the imGoats project entitled “‘Small ruminant value chains as platforms for reducing poverty and increasing food security in dryland areas of India and Mozambique’”. She was based at CARE Mozambique (Vilanculos) and lived 2 years in Mozambique (2011-2013), where she conducted action research and fieldwork. Her research resulted in various publications and training materials on innovation platforms and goat keeping (see publications).
Prior to her post-doctoral research, she was assistant professor at the Rural Sociology Group (RSO) of Wageningen University (2009-2011), where she provided courses – e.g. Animal Science in Society – , supervised students, and focussed on themes like socio-cultural sustainability, agriculture, and human-animal relationships. She also worked as researcher at on innovation platforms in agricultural development (2013).
Earlier, she worked as researcher at the systems innovations group at Wageningen Livestock Research (WLR), where her work focused on making connections between research, policy and education (2009-2010).
Birgit Boogaard has a PhD in Rural Sociology and Animal Production Systems (2009) from Wageningen University. Her PhD research – entitled The Socio-Cultural Sustainability of Animal Farming. An inquiry into social perceptions of dairy farming in the Netherlands and Norway– resulted in multiple peer-reviewed publications. She conducted part of her fieldwork in cooperation with the University of Life Sciences Norway (NMBU), for which she stayed 6 months in Ås.
She has an Msc degree in Animal Production Systems and Communication & Innovation Studies from Wageningen University (2003). For her internship she conducted fieldwork in the Gambia, where she stayed 6 months at the International Trypanotolerance Centre (Bansang). For her Msc thesis she conducted fieldwork in Brazil, where she stayed 6 months at the Universidade Federal de Sao Carlos (UFSCar) in Araras.
Birgit has a working proficiency in Dutch, English, and Portuguese, and speaks basic Norwegian. Moreover, Birgit is illustrator and artist. In 2014, she followed a course at the Royal Art Academy in The Hague. Subsequently she followed courses on graphic design and digital illustrations.
