Faculty research interests

Below is a list of SERS faculty members and their research interests. For more information, follow the link in their name to their profile page.

Derek Armitage

  • Human dimensions of environmental change
  • Adaptive and collaborative governance in coastal and marine systems
  • Coastal conservation and social-ecological systems

Christine Barbeau

  • First Nations, adaptive capacity, resilience and climate change
  • Local and sustainable agriculture in Arctic Indigenous communities

Marta Berbes

  • Sustainable urban futures
  • Environmental justice
  • Resilience and social-ecological systems
  • Ecosystem services and human wellbeing
  • Design justice
  • Participatory action research

Jennifer Clapp

  • Global food security politics and governance
  • Food system sustainability
  • International political economy of the environment

Andrea Collins

  • Feminist international relations and global governance
  • Gender and global political economy
  • Global land and agricultural governance
  • Gender and environmental politics
  • Backlash politics and counter-movements in global politics

Rob de Loë

  • How photography can deepen engagement with environmental challenges

Felicitas Egunyu

  • Inclusion and equity in collaborative governance
  • Social impacts assessment
  • Science and policy integration

Brad Fedy

  • Wildlife ecology and management
  • Landscape genetics
  • Habitat selection
  • Population dynamics
  • Applied statistics

Dustin Garrick

  • Water conflict and cooperation
  • Social-ecological transitions (economic and environmental history)
  • Collective action, property rights, and markets

Robert Gibson

  • Environmental assessment law and process reform
  • Sustainability assessment principles and applications

Rob Gorbet

  • Interfaces. Physical interfaces, interfaces between disciplines, interfaces between people.
  • Interface design; interactive artworks; human interaction in collaboration, teaching, and learning.

Leah Jones-Crank

  • Water-energy-food nexus
  • Collaborative water governance
  • Urban sustainability
  • Stakeholder engagement
  • Qualitative research methods

Brendon Larson

  • Ecology/biodiversity conservation and society
  • Connection to nature
  • Perception of nature

Kelsey Leonard

  • Ocean and water policy
  • Earth law and Indigenous law
  • Ocean/coastal/marine participatory mapping
  • Indigenous climate change policy
  • Indigenous data sovereignty

Chantel Markle

  • Effects of climate-mediated disturbances on habitat use and function
  • Climate refugia: Detecting and predicting change
  • Habitat restoration: Enhancing resilience to climate change

Stephen Murphy

  • Ecological restoration, resilience, rewilding and conservation
  • Novel ecosystems
  • Ecology and policy of parks and protected areas
  • Pollination and invasive species ecology

James Nugent

  • Social movements, environmental/climate justice, just transition
  • Urban political ecology and green economic development
  • Community-based/participatory research

Maren Oelbermann

  • Sustainable agriculture and climate change resilience
  • Soil health, biochar, carbon sequestration

Katie Plaisance

  • Philosophy of science
  • Philosophy of the human behavioural sciences
  • Socially relevant philosophy of science
  • Social epistemology
  • Interactional expertise
  • Interdisciplinary collaboration

Stephen Quilley

  • Energy and complexity: Integrating insights from Norbert Elias and HT Odum
  • Environmental politics: degrowth; Class politics and resistance to Net Zero; the history of green political economy ecological economics; green politics; conservative philosophy and politics
  • Postliberal politics and political economy: Aquinas; Virtue Ethics; Catholic Social Teaching: subsidiarity; Alasdair Macintrye; Roger Scruton
  • Environmental management and sustainability: Net zero and measurement of scope 1 2 and 3 emissions; Sustainable procurement
  • Christian theology and environmental thought: Thomas Aquinas, Tolkien, CS Lewis, Owen Barfield
  • Modernity, cognition and ecological conscience/ habitus formation: Iain McGilchrist, Luria, Water Ong, Ernest Gellner, Owen Barfield

Ian Rowlands

  • Energy governance and policy
  • Sustainable energy strategies
  • Multilevel climate governance
  • International energy and environmental relations
  • Internationalization of higher education

Vanessa Schweizer

  • Collective decision-making. This includes many processes such as articulating aspirations and values, exercising foresight, confronting uncertainties and risks, and negotiating tradeoffs.

Helena Shilomboleni

  • Agriculture and food security in the global South
  • Farming systems resilience
  • Scaling digital agriculture innovations

Andrew Trant

  • Global change ecology
  • Biogeography and forest ecology
  • Historical ecology