Summary

My academic expertise sits at the intersection of people, environment and knowledge. My research strives to develop applied responses to environmental and societal challenges that are attentive to place, inequality, governance, community knowledge and public engagement. My research and teaching are framed by systems-based thinking to approach complex global challenges not only as scientific or technical problems, but issues shaped by people, places, institutions, values and forms of knowledge that vary across space and time. My integrative human-environment perspective connects society, science, sustainability, policy, communities, place, behaviour, values, ethics, justice and decision-making, with a particular focus on children and young people. Given the scale and complexity of global environmental and societal challenges, my research and teaching place emphasis on affirmative – or hopeful – approaches to thinking in times of crisis, using playful, embodied and art-based approaches to connect with others.

My particular areas of specialist knowledge and expertise are:

• Working at the intersections of natural sciences, social sciences and the humanities
• Environmental literacies and science communication, with a particular but not exclusive focus on water
• Geopolitical climates, cultures, identities and agency – or geopolitical literacies
• Relational agency of children and young people
• Politics of knowledge production, socio-spatial injustice and affirmative (or hopeful) modes of critical thinking in times of crisis
• Social, interpretive and creative research methodologies

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and have been a Principal Investigator on a series of projects funded by the UK’s Economic and Social Research Council.