Degree: PhD    

Title: Associate Professor 

Teaching and research directions: tourism development, sustainable social development, innovative methodology, tourism interaction process between subjects and objects and mountaineering tourism.

Yana Wengel is an international tourism researcher born in Siberia, Russia. She holds a master's degree in tourism development strategy from Fachchochschule Stralsund in Germany and a doctor's degree in tourism and communication from Waikato University in New Zealand. She is currently involved in several international tourism projects, and mountaineering tourism is one of her main focus areas.  

Yana examines issues in the field of tourism from a critical perspective and is an interdisciplinary scholar who specializes in tourism development, sustainable social development and innovative methods. She is a certified promoter of LEGO Serious Play and a practitioner of Keso teaching methods.

Yana regularly contacts community stakeholders and conducts community work consistent with her research interests. She worked for the Luxembourg Aid and Development Agency in Myanmar and volunteered for the New Zealand Red Cross. She is also the co-founder of LEGO Serious Play. Yana has extensive undergraduate and graduate teaching experience and serves as a tutor for undergraduate and graduate students. 

In the HAITC, Yana mainly teaches human geography, tourism geography and current tourism affairs. She also provides lectures for visiting students.