Dr. Kathinka Fürst is Associate Director of the Environmental Research Center and Assistant Adjunct Professor of Environmental Policyat at Duke Kunshan University . Dr. Fürst received her PhD degree at the Faculty of Law, University of Amsterdam and her MA degree at the Center from Environment and Development at the University of Oslo. She has a BA in Sinology from Beijing Language and Culture University. Her research generally looks at environmental regulation and justice in China. In her first project, which culminated in her MA thesis she focused on pollution victims and their access to justice.  This thesis, entitled "Access to Justice in Environmental Disputes: Opportunities and Obstacles for Chinese Pollution Victims" sought to identify various structural, political, financial, technical, legal and cultural obstacles Chinese citizens face in the process of invoking their legal rights. It was based on empirical qualitative data derived from fieldwork in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The thesis used that data to engage with socio-legal literature on rights invocation and apply and further develop this in the context of China’s pollution victims.