Dr. Sven Daniel Wolfe

Sven Daniel Wolfe is a political and urban geographer, Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione fellow, co-founder of the City Collaboratory urban studies research network, and a vice president of the Swiss Association of Geography.

He works on the socio-spatial impacts of mega-events, urban sustainable development, and everyday geopolitics. His SNF Ambizione project at ETH Zurich looks at the aftereffects of hosting the world's most prestigious mega-events on a range of cities around the globe.

He has a MA in political science from the European University St. Petersburg, a MSc in geography from the University of Zurich, and a PhD in geography from the University of Lausanne. He is the author of "More Than Sport: Soft Power and Potemkinism in the 2018 Men's Football World Cup in Russia" (LIT Verlag) and the edited volume "The Hard Edge of Soft Power: Mega-Events, Geopolitics, and Making Nations Great Again" (Palgrave), to be released in 2024. He has published in Geopolitics, Environment and Planning C, Antipode, Leisure Studies, International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics, Nature Sustainability, and more. 

He is also a regular commentator for a wide variety of international media, including The New York Times, National Public Radio, Bloomberg, Politico, USA Today, BBC, The Independent, the CBC, Deutsche Welle, Sportschau, MDR Wissen, France 24, Illustré, Le Temps, Blick, among others. 

Academic positions  

2023 - 2027 Swiss National Science Foundation Ambizione Fellow. Spatial Developement and Urban Policy group, ETH Zürich. 

2022 - 2023 Senior Scientist. Political Geography unit, Department of Geography, University of Zurich. 

2019 - 2022 Junior Lecturer. Department of Geography and Sustainability, University of Lausanne. 

Education 

2019 - PhD in Geography, University of Lausanne

2016 - MSc in Geographies of Global Change, University of Zurich

2014 - MA in Political Science, European University St. Petersburg