Sarah Burch, PhD is an assistant professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management, University of Waterloo, Canada. Dr. Burch has published widely on transformative responses to climate change at the community scale, and innovative strategies for governing sustainability. She co-teaches a Massive Open Online Course called ‘Climate Literacy: Navigating Climate Change Conversations’, which reaches thousands of students in over 130 countries.
Dr. Burch received a PhD in resource management and environmental studies from the University of British Columbia, Canada (2009) and held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Oxford (2009-2011). She is a co-ordinating lead author in the second Assessment Report on Climate Change in Cities, and North American co-ordinator of the Earth System Governance network of Research Fellows. She was a contributing author to the fourth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007) and was awarded a Banting Fellowship for her work on sustainability innovation. Her most recent book (2014) is entitled ‘Understanding Climate Change: Science, Policy and Practice.’