Lea Rüsch

Lea Rüsch is a PhD Candidate at Kühne Logistics University in the field of Humanitarian Logistics and Organizational Behaviour under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Maria Besiou and Prof. Dr. Niels Van Quaquebeke. As the collaboration of aid organizations poses a challenge for successful humanitarian operations management during and after crisis, her research sheds light on the conditions, motives and behavioral dynamics underlying operational performance.

Lea did her Bachelor in Communication and Economy studies at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. She furthermore gathered practical experiences in the communications, HR consultancy and coaching sector at international companies such as the ZDF, Deutsche Bank London and Frankfurt as well as Kienbaum Singapore. In collaboration with Deutsche Bank, she wrote her Bachelor thesis on internal communications strategies subsequently implementing the results. Furthermore, she worked as a job coach for immigrants which was her first exposure to the field of humanitarian aid.

Due to her interest in group and leadership dynamics she did her Master in Organisational and Social Psychology at the London School of Economics. After she finished her Master thesis in August 2017, she started the PhD program at the KLU.