Vanessa Schweizer

Associate Professor, Associate Chair | Knowledge Integration, Faculty of Environment

Vanessa's fundamental training was in Physics, and she holds minors in Mathematics, Philosophy, and Speech Communication. She also holds a master’s in Environmental Studies and a PhD in Engineering and Public Policy. She blends these interdisciplinary interests through her work on scenarios, which are common tools for collective decision-making. In a variety of contexts, collective decision-making includes many processes such as articulating aspirations and values, exercising foresight, confronting uncertainties and risks, and negotiating trade-offs. Vanessa's teaching includes coursework on design and problem-solving.

Her research focuses on the problem of cross-disciplinary knowledge integration and the design of scenarios for the human dimensions of large-scale environmental change. She also has ongoing projects around problems in long-term decision-making such as forecasting and discontinuities (that is, developments that could be considered "game-changing" compared to the status quo). Her recent work has included the influence of occupational, interpersonal, and cultural conflicts on climate change attitudes.