Fabian grew up in Vienna, where he earned his undergraduate degree in law at the University of Vienna. Following graduation, he joined the Department of Private Law as a research and teaching assistant to the dean, Prof. Brigitta Zöchling-Jud, while simultaneously pursuing a PhD in law with a focus on private international law. His academic interests have taken him beyond Vienna: he attended the summer courses in private international law at The Hague Academy of International Law and conducted research as a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg, Germany. Alongside his academic work, Fabian gained practical experience as an intern at the Austrian Constitutional Court and as a clerk at the Austrian Supreme Court.

Konstantin Raftl is an alum of the International Master’s in Museology and Art History Program—a joint program of the École du Louvre in Paris and the University of Heidelberg—and holds an undergraduate degree from Freie Universität Berlin. At The New School, he is interested in conducting interdisciplinary research in arts & politics. Konstantin's interests include political thought, global politics, political imagination.

Ambra Schuster is an Austrian journalist, host, and speaker currently pursuing a master’s degree in engagement journalism in New York City. She studied journalism & media management at the FH Wien der WKW (a university of applied science) in Vienna. Before moving to the US, she worked as a radio, TV, and social-media journalist at the Austrian public broadcasting corporation (ORF). In 2021, Ambra became a TikTok host and social-media editor for ORF’s flagship news program, Zeit im Bild, helping build Austria’s largest news account on the platform. She has produced news and explainer videos for TikTok and Instagram for nearly four years and is an expert in vertical-video and social-media storytelling. Passionate about innovation in journalism, she focuses on new ways to engage audiences and create relevant storytelling.

Ivana Živojinović is a senior researcher at BOKU University’s Institute of Forest, Environmental and Natural Resource Policy (InFER) and Centre for Bioeconomy (ZfB) and the deputy head of the Forest Policy Research Network at the European Forest Institute (EFI). She holds a PhD in social and economic sciences in forestry from BOKU, a double MSc in European forestry (BOKU/University of Eastern Finland), and a Dipl.-Eng. in landscape architecture (University of Belgrade).

With 10+ years of research experience, she has contributed to major European and international projects in forest and forest-related fields. Her work spans forest policy and governance, private forest ownership, innovation in forestry, the forest-based bioeconomy, and forest services, with a particular interest in urban forestry and nature-based solutions. Her research centers on Western Europe—with a particular emphasis on the post-socialist countries of Eastern and South-Eastern Europe—and has recently expanded globally through collaborations with the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

Eva Lechner is from Salzburg. After studying English and technical & textile design, she spent the past three years teaching these subjects at high school. They are also her personal passions, so her work often feels like a hobby. Outside of teaching, Eva enjoys spending time in the mountains skiing and snowboarding, and she also loves playing the guitar. This year, Eva is the German-language teaching assistant at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. She is very excited to share her language and culture with the students learning German at St. Thomas and looks forward to a great year with them.

Lorenz is from Vienna. He recently graduated from the University of Vienna with a bachelor's degree in philosophy, focusing on contemporary and applied philosophy. Alongside his studies, Lorenz worked as a tutor for an NGO, helping children with migration backgrounds learn German and navigate the Austrian school system.

Lorenz's fascination with languages and language learning was probably sparked at thirteen, when he was preparing a play in English class. Somewhere between the lines of the script, Lorenz fell in love with the language. In admiration of the different anglophone cultures, he would go on to spend the next summer reading an English-German dictionary like a novel from A to Z. This same fascination later motivated him to go abroad for an exchange semester in Canada—coincidentally right across the border from Bates College, where he is spending his FLTA year.

Lorenz is happiest when he is around other people to talk, do, or craft. He particularily loves sewing and anything related to music and film.