Per Askerlund

Per Askerlund was born 1960 in Stockholm. He earned his BSc in biology from Uppsala University in 1984 and his PhD in Plant biochemistry from Lund University in 1990. His doctoral thesis dealt with redox reactions in plant plasma membranes, processes that are involved in solute transport and defense against invading pathogens.

During a two-year post-doctoral period at Department of Plant Sciences, Oxford University, UK, Per joined the group of Dr. D.E. Evans, working on calcium transporting ion pumps in plant membranes. He was a Visiting scholar at Wolfson college, Oxford,  between 1990 and 1992. As a post-doctoral research fellow at Lund University with funding from the Swedish Natural Science Research Council (NFR), he continued to focus on mechanisms for calcium transport in plant membranes between 1992-2000. He was appointed associate professor in plant biochemistry at Lund University in 1996 and supervised one doctoral student, who finished her PhD thesis in 2000.

In 2000, Per obtained a teacher certificate for upper secondary school (biology and chemistry) after studies at Malmö University, Sweden. He worked as a senior master in chemistry at Växjö Katedralskola, Sweden, between 2000-2002. Since February 2002 he is employed as a senior lecturer in biology at School of Education and Communication, Jönköping University. Since 2002 Per has mainly been involved in teaching but more recently developed an interest in environmental and outdoor education research. Between 2017-2020 he was involved in a research project entitled "Multi-functional urban outdoor preschool setttings and the promotion of health and ecosystem services: An investigation of collaborative processes" and currently (2024) he is involved in the research project "Overcoming climate change worry: How action competence can contribute to wellbeing among young adults".

Per has published more than 20 articles in leading refereed international journals, as well as a large number of book chapters and conference proceedings.