Research Principal
I am a Research Principal based at the Institute for Sustainable Futures, University of Technology, Sydney (UTS) Australia. I have over 12 years expertise in environmental sustainability and stakeholder engagement. My research focuses on the fields of climate change adaptation and biodiversity conservation. I possess strong interpersonal skills and have experience in designing, facilitating and evaluating stakeholder and community engagement activities. Since 2012, I have been the co-author of 11 peer-reviewed publications including journal papers and 2 book chapters. My published work spans the fields of Climate Change Adaptation; Natural Resource Management; Conservation and Animal Welfare.
I have managed the delivery of seven high profile projects under the New South Wales Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) government research hub that was established to investigate the vulnerability of government service provision to climate change in New South Wales (NSW). I co-designed and facilitation of over thirty stakeholder workshops engaging over 1,500 participants to foster participants learning through an Integrated Regional Vulnerability Assessment (IRVA). This process identifies regional vulnerability to climate impacts and community adaptive capacity. More recently, this process has evolved into the Enabling Regional Adaptation (ERA) process which also includes transformative adaptation pathways to reduce regional vulnerability in major sectors such as energy, water, transport, infrastructure etc. Another research project investigated how climate change could impact National Parks in NSW. Polly Mitchell the Senior Project Officer Climate Change Impacts. This has been publised as the paper
I have transferred my expertise in community engagement around climate change adaptation to the Pacific Island nations of Kiribati, Tonga and Papua New Guinea. I co-designed and facilitated a series of train the trainer style workshops to improve the adaptive management of community based water resources in Kiribati. This included an impact mapping exercise to rapidly gather information about how climate change extremes such as storm surges, changing rainfall patterns and sea level rise impact communities in the islands that make up Kiribati, as well as the inclusion of an informal discussion with participants to gain a deeper understanding of participant’s lived experience with climate change. In September 2017 I delivered a 2-day training workshop to staff from various government departments in the Pacific island nation of Tonga. The training focused on how to frame conversations about climate change to better engage local communities in dialogue about the impacts of climate change to provide an evidence base for national adaptation planning. In June 2018 I managed the delivery of 4 workshops with communities in the country of Papua New Guinea in the Pacific to enage communities in climate adaptation & biodiversity conservation.
Joined 2018
Organisation
Location
Sydney, NSW, Australia
