Scientific Associates

Scientific Associate - Chair of Cultural Management, Field of study Heritage Management 

Michel Venne is a product of interdisciplinary studies, starting with his Bachelor’s Degree with Individual Concentration in Cultural Heritage (UMass Amherst, 2015) and followed by a masters in World Heritage Studies (BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg, 2018) focused on World Heritage and Higher Education. He also worked at the Chair of Cultural Management as a student assistant (2017-18). 

His working experience post-graduation started as assistant manager for the 2018 edition of the World Heritage Site Managers' Forum with the Institute for Heritage Management GmbH. From there, he worked as an intern at UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre Asia / Pacific Unit (2019), consultant at UNESCO Dakar Culture Office (Senegal) (2019), and returned to the World Heritage Centre as an Associate Project Officer for the Third Cycle of Periodic Reporting for Asia and the Pacific (2020-21). 

Since August 2021 he is a scientific associate at the Chair of Cultural Management and is conducting his PhD research on higher education and the UNESCO Competency Framework for Cultural Management, focused primarily in India. Other professional interests include capacity building, digital learning, heritage management in Asia and the Pacific. In his courses, he strives to link theory to practice, ensuring that the course concept and materials can be applied in the field as a working professional.

Courses taught:

620302 Seminar World Heritage Management Plans 
620301 Seminar Understanding Heritage Site Management 
13394 Heritage Management and Management Plans (Online) 
620314 Social Media and Educational Content Creation for Culture and Heritage (Study Project) 
37406 Fundraising and Finance for Heritage 
13393 Fundraising and Finance for Heritage (online) 

Contact

Mr. Michel Venne

LG 2B, Room B 0.08
Konrad-Wachsmann-Allee 4
03046 Cottbus

Tel.  +49 (0) 355 69-3545

venne(at)b-tu.de 

Rikke holds a Master's degree in History and International Development Studies from Roskilde University and a Master's degree in European Ethnology from Humboldt University in Berlin. Her interest in heritage and museum studies began in 2012 when she worked as a museum guide at the Jewish Museum Berlin. During her studies, she worked at CARMAH – the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museum and Heritage. She completed her studies with a research thesis on the role of Berlin museums for new migrants and refugees after the "Summer of Migration" in 2015.
From 2019 to 2021, she was a research assistant at the University of Osnabrück at the Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies in the project Kultmix – Cultural Production in the Migration Society. Back in museum practice, Rikke worked as a research trainee at the Museum Pankow in Berlin from 2021 to 2023. As a freelance museum anthropologist, she has collaborated with a variety of heritage institutions in Germany and curated several exhibitions.
Since September 2025, she has been a research assistant at the Chair of Cultural Management. In her teaching, she encourages collaborative work and supports students in developing problem-oriented research projects based on their interests.

Rikke Gram

LG 2A, Raum A 0.01
Konrad-Wachsmann-Allee 2
03046 Cottbus

Tel.  +49 (0) 355 69- 2479

gram@b-tu.de 

Nathalie Isaak is a cultural anthropologist. During her first degree in Cultural Anthropology and History at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, she spent two semesters studying in Turku and Saint Petersburg. At the University of Weimar, she also studied intercultural music and event management and undertook an internship at a municipal cultural organisation. She subsequently went to the University of Hamburg and completed her degree in Empirical Cultural Studies in 2022. Nathalie Isaak’s academic interests include migration, Southern and Eastern European studies, transnational and transcultural perspectives, and ethnographic research. During this time, she worked as an intern at a TV production company specialising in cultural programmes, as a student assistant at the Institute of Ethnology, and as a tutor and lecturer at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology.

Since then, Nathalie Isaak has been continuously involved in teaching at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology at the University of Hamburg. From 2022 to 2024, she also worked in Hamburg on an ESF-funded project providing counselling to young protection seekers from Ukraine. In 2025, she began an eight-month further training programme to become a consultant for collection management and quality standards in museums in Lower Saxony. As part of this qualification, she worked as academic staff at the German Sielhafen Museum Carolinensiel at the Wadden Sea.

Since October 2025, she is an academic staff member in the Department of Cultural Management at BTU. Alongside her teaching activities there, she is currently planning her doctoral research project. Her research interests lie in the significance, interpretation and handling of culture within fragile structures, with a focus on Ukrainian cultural work in the age of Russian neo-imperialism. In her teaching and research, she emphasises a critical and reflexive research approach, an ethnographically oriented methodology, and an epistemology dedicated to a relational and assembled understanding of the world.

Nathalie Isaak

LG 2A, Raum A 0.01
Konrad-Wachsmann-Allee 2
03046 Cottbus

Tel.  +49 (0) 355 69- 3814

isaak@b-tu.de