Darya Hirsch is an Associate Academic Officer for the PALM project at the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security. She holds a PhD in agricultural science and a Masters in agricultural economics, both from the University of Bonn in Germany. She has worked as a scientific employee and coordinator of international collaboration at the Tashkent Irrigation Engineering School and as a post-doctoral researcher in the NeWater project at the Institute for Environmental Systems Research, University of Osnabrück, Germany.