Research Projects

My research is interdisciplinary, focusing on the social science dimensions of climate variability and climate change. My work explores risk perception, risk communication and public engagement with climate change; and the implications of these areas for policy and practice.

I like to experiment with different methodologies, using methods which hold most promise for the research questions I set out to answer. I have published research using survey, interview, focus group, expert elicitation, photo-elicitation and Q methods; and content, frame and critical visual analysis.

I am lead/sole investigator for the following projects (see drop-down menu for details):

  • 2021-23: Leverhulme Research Fellowship ‘The visual life of climate change’
  • 2020-21: Norwegian Environment Agency, Special Issue on Climate Change Communication
  • 2019-21: ESRC Impact Accelerator Account: ‘Picturing climate change: media training for human editors and machine algorithms’
  • 2013-2015: Exeter University HASS funded project ‘Media and the cultural politics of climate change: tracking the coverage of the IPCC Fifth Assessment Report’
  • 2012-2017: ESRC Future Research Leader Fellowship ‘Visualising Climate Change’

I was also a co-investigator on the following project:

Policy and practice
My research has contributed to the development of public policy. I have contributed to research about community safety concerning bushfire risk (including a report for the Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission); and in defining and assessing maladaptation in the water sector. I have also contributed to public engagement with climate change activities beyond academia, with past projects including a silver medal-winning garden for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, ‘The 2050 Garden’. More recently, I have been working with media organisations in a process of opening up the visual climate discourse. This has involved Getty Images, the World Press Photo Foundation and Climate Visuals (part of Climate Outreach, a charity where I sit on the International Advisory Board).