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I am Adjunct Assistant Professor and Caivan Communities Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Waterloo. I am also a  researcher in the SPROUT Lab at the University of Waterloo as well as an Earth System Governance Research Fellow.

I research how societies can better govern complex environmental challenges. My research combines theory-building with empirical case studies to understand society-nature relationships and how they can be transformed. This empirical work looks at climate change, forest policy, water governance, cities, and economic transitions, yielding policy insights and fostering community action.

My current research and policy work focuses on climate action, future cities, and transformative visions of wellbeing. I recently received the Caivan Communities Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Waterloo for a project The Future of Sustainable Cities in Canada. With the TRANSFORM project, I am helping to understand and develop transformative capacity building strategies to help small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and communities transition to zero-carbon and resilient economies. I am also co-investigator on a project called Sustaining and Strengthening City Climate Action in the COVID-19 crisis for a green and climate-resilient recovery (ClimateCitiesRecovery) funded by the Volkswagen Foundation. 

I also work part-time on Mountain Pine Beetle policy in Western Canada as a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Social Ecology and Conservation Collaborative at Carleton University.

I teach Climate Change Fundamentals (GEOG 207) at the University of Waterloo.

I completed my PhD in the Economics for the Anthropocene (E4A) project at McGill University in 2020. My doctoral research focused on understanding deep transformations in society-nature relationships and explored their dynamics in the context of Canadian climate change politics. I hold an MSc from McGill University and a BSc in Physics and Environmental Science from the University of Toronto. My Master’s research focused on the legitimacy of collaborative watershed governance in Quebec. 

I recently co-edited Liberty and the Ecological Crisis: Freedom on a Finite Planet.