Alona is a postdoctoral researcher at the Chair of Information Systems at Humboldt University of Berlin and an Honorary Research Associate in the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) at the University of Oxford. She has also been a visiting researcher at the Australian National University and the National University of Singapore. Alona serves as an expert scientist at the German Climate Consortium (Deutsches Klima Konsortium) and is an Add-On Fellow of the Joachim Herz Foundation. She is also a member of EDITS.
She holds a Ph.D. in statistics and econometrics from Humboldt University of Berlin and Bachelor's and Master’s degrees in management of organisations and mathematical modelling from Odesa I.I. Mechnikov National University (Ukraine). Alona also has extensive experience in research coordination, having managed a Collaborative Research Center (CRC) and an International Research Training Group (IRTG) at Humboldt University of Berlin, both funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
Alona’s research lies at the intersection of machine learning, information systems, and demand-side climate change mitigation. Methodologically, she focuses on the design and development of recommendation systems, multi-agent systems, social network analysis, complex data visualisation, and AI methods for evidence synthesis. She applies these approaches to demand-side management and flexibility, energy efficiency, the built environment, smart homes (hardware, software, automation), and human behaviour change aiming at reducing CO₂ emissions.
Currently, Alona leads a project on “Electricity Load Management for Demand-Side Climate Change Mitigation with Recommendation Systems and Smart Home Automations“, supported by a Transfer Grant from the Joachim Herz Foundation. The project's web platform, reduceCO2today.org, provides daily recommendations to households in 197 countries on shifting electricity consumption to reduce CO₂ emissions.
