Team & Advisors

Carina is an interdisciplinary social scientist with a background in science and technology studies and human ecology. She works at the intersection of science, policy, and practice, where she is interested in understanding how decisions are made in complex and contested environmental management challenges. Carina’s current work focuses on the science, policy, and politics of environmental futures.

Carina has worked in Australia, the United States, Colombia, and Switzerland, with government and non-government organizations on climate adaptation, wildfire governance, and biodiversity conservation. Carina was the research advisor for the Luc Hoffmann Institute from 2015-2020, where she worked on practices and methods to facilitate dialogue between diverse actors associated with complex conservation challenges. She co-lead the Biodiversity Revisited Initiative, an international collaboration that critically examined the biodiversity construct to develop a research and action agenda for diverse and just futures for life on Earth.

She is now at the Institute for Water Futures at the Australian National University, where she is working foresight practices and anticipatory governance in the Murray Darling Basin.

Joel has worked in research and management with a focus on science technology and innovation; climate change adaptation and mitigation; water quality, security, and access; food security, entrepreneurship and markets, and sustainable development. He has professional experience leading and participating in international research and development projects including the NWO funded inclusive low emission development initiatives in Kenya and Tanzania (i-LED) project; and ESRC funded Governing Sociotechnical Transformations in Agriculture, Energy, and Cities (GoST) project among others.

As a convenor for the Young African Scholars Academy at the Africa Sustainability Hub (ASH), his work is fostering research, capacity building, and policy engagement among early career researchers, practitioners and policy makers. Currently, Joel is involved in the conversation on governance of socio-technical transformations and inclusive low emission development pathways; and decolonising research methods for the global south. Joel is a deputy director under the Climate Resilient Economies (CRE) programme, at the African Centre for Technology Studies (ACTS); and a team leader for applied research at the African Researchers Consortium.

Professor Karen O'Brien is a leading international expert on the social and human dimensions of global environmental change. She is based at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo, and is a co-founder of cCHANGE, a company that bridges research and practice and supports transformation in a changing climate. She is leading a five-year project called AdaptationCONNECTS which explores the role of collaboration, flexibility, creativity, and empowerment in transformation processes.

O'Brien is particularly interested in the role beliefs, values, worldviews, and paradigms play in generating conscious social change, and this includes an exploration of the potential for "quantum social change." She explores these themes more deeply in her new book "You Matter More Than You Think: Quantum Social Change in Response to a World in Crisis."

O´Brien is deeply involved in the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In early 2021, she was a co-recipient of the BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award for her contribution to furthering the field of adaptation and vulnerability.

Per leads the Stockholm Resilience Centre’s research on Resilience Science for Transformation. His current research focuses on agency and systems entrepreneurship, social-ecological innovations, and transformations to sustainability. His work has been published in a variety of natural and social science journals, including Science, Ecology and Society, PNAS, TREE, Ambio, Global Environmental Change, Environmental Management, and the Annual Review of the Environment and Resources. In 2019 and 2020 he was recognized by the Web of Science as one of the world's most influential researchers of the past decade.

Per also works with change-makers around the world to strengthen their capacities to achieve transformative change that helps humans and nature thrive together. This previously involved co-leading the Rockefeller Foundation Global Fellowship Program on Social Innovation and Resilience and currently involves serving as the director for the BALTICLEAD and the Transforming Change programs. He is also involved in facilitating interactions among scientists, policymakers, artists, business representatives, and the public, through a variety of initiatives, including co-founding the Coral Guardians.

Interdisciplinary conservation scientist/practitioner with 28 years of program development experience building coastal and marine ecosystem stewardship. In 2001 he was awarded the title of "Environmental Hero" by U.S. Vice President Al Gore. At SustainaMetrix he leads an interdisciplinary team in ongoing consultancies in ecosystem science and research, policy, education, economics and multi-media communications. He has a long list of professional experiences building programs from the ground up and leading their design, implementation and evaluation. Glenn has pioneered methods for assessing the development and implementation of University PhD programs designed to promote interdisciplinary research funded by the National Science Foundation Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) programs.