Dan McCarthy is the Co-Director of the Waterloo Institute of Social Innovation and Resilience (WISIR), and the Associate Director, Undergraduate Studies, as well as an associate professor in the School of Environment, Resource and Sustainability at the University of Waterloo. His research focuses on complexity, resilience, social innovation, and inner transformation.
His interdisciplinary academic background has focused on exploring the utility of complex systems-based approaches to understanding and intervening in linked social, ecological, and epistemological systems. He has strong research interests and partnerships that relate to fostering adaptive capacity for community-based natural resource management, while working closely with several First Nations groups in Ontario. Other research explores landscape level policy change related to integrating stewardship, livelihoods and learning on the Oak Ridges Moraine.