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Meet the team

We’re a team of social scientists and communications specialists passionate about building a strong social mandate for climate action, by placing people at the heart of tackling this global issue.

Our staff and leadership team are supported by dedicated trustees as well as a research advisory board. We’re based in the UK but work with partners worldwide. If we’re looking for any new team members, we’ll list them on our jobs page.

Leadership team


Rachael Orr

Chief Executive Officer

Rachael is the CEO of Climate Outreach. She works closely with the board to ensure effective governance and growth of the organisation and with our senior leaders in defining and delivering the organisation’s overall strategy, goals and impact.

Rachael has spent her career in the voluntary sector in leadership roles combining a deep commitment to social justice and to public engagement. She has run campaigns for Shelter, led programme and campaigning work at Oxfam and currently serves as Chair of Trustees at the Refugee Council.

It was in her last role, leading a network of housing associations, that Rachael really appreciated the huge gap in public awareness and engagement on climate change – and the huge opportunity to fill this gap. Housing, like many sectors, is in a race to decarbonise, and the sector is still really developing its approach to community, resident and public engagement. Rachael firmly believes that Climate Outreach is uniquely placed to help many sectors fill this gap.

Rachael is a mum to two young children so most of her spare time is spent playing schools or superheroes – and tidying up. She spends any time she gets to herself running, cycling and going to the theatre.

Noora Firaq

Deputy Chief Executive Officer

Noora is Climate Outreach’s Deputy CEO. She leads on organisational development and business strategy of Climate Outreach and works closely with the board and other senior leaders.

Noora is from the Maldives – one of the most climate-vulnerable countries in the world due to the country’s natural land scarcity and low-lying geography. Having experienced how people and communities are adapting to climate change, Noora is passionate about having an inclusive conversation about how we tackle climate change as a global community.

After Business and Law School, she started her career at Financial Ombudsman Service (UK). She has worked in charities, co-operatives, and ethical finance in the UK. Through her diverse career experiences, she has developed a passion for organisational behaviour, transformation and leadership and has completed the Executive Leadership programme at Oxford University, Saïd Business School. She is always looking for innovative ways of working to facilitate teams to create impact.

Her first language is Dhivehi and she tries hard not to forget her Sinhalese from the days when she lived in Sri Lanka. In her free time, she loves to spend time with her friends, read and go for walks.

Dr Amiera Sawas

Chief Research and Engagement Officer

Amiera Sawas joined Climate Outreach in 2021. She is responsible for overseeing the programmatic and research implementation of the organisation’s strategy. Amiera has diverse experience in climate, environment and development research and programming work, across the private, non-governmental and academic sectors. This has taken her to various countries including Sweden, Pakistan, Jordan and Kenya. As a result, she’s really passionate about the potential of bringing diverse stakeholders together to combat climate change and set an inclusive vision for our collective future.

Amiera has a PhD in Human Geography, a Masters in Global Politics and a Bachelors in Psychology. She is terrible at languages but has managed to hone a good grasp of French, as well as some basic Urdu. She is currently making her Syrian family proud by finally dedicating time to learning Arabic. In her spare time she can be found dancing samba, listening to hip hop and endlessly watching true crime documentaries.

Staff


Hoor Al-Amin

SPARK Coordination Contractor

Hoor is the SPARK Coordinator Contractor at Climate Outreach, working with the advocacy communication programme and SPARK Consortium partners to share research findings on climate justice and European youth.

Coming from one of the world’s most water-scarce countries, and having witnessed the impact of climate change on some of the most vulnerable communities, Hoor took up an interest in environmental studies. As a water and environmental engineer, Hoor volunteered at a refugee camp delivering WASH services in Jordan. This on-ground experience sparked her interest in communicating with people and engaging with communities. To build on this experience, Hoor joined Oxfam’s policy, influencing, and advocacy team in Jordan where she supported the delivery of local environmental research and campaigns, in addition to providing evidence-based research to inform policy-making and climate justice programming. With an MSc in Environmental Planning and Management from IHE Delft Institute for Water Education, Hoor continues to learn about our changing environment.

Outside of work, Hoor enjoys spending quality time with her family and friends, and can often be found moving weights at the gym.

Lauren Armstrong

Communications Coordinator

Lauren is part of the Communications team at Climate Outreach, working to share insights and materials to support government, organisations and individuals engage a wide range of people with climate change. Lauren has worked in communications for a number of years across energy, science and consultancy landscapes.

Lauren holds a Master’s in Climate Change from King’s College London, a highly multidisciplinary degree pulling from both physical and social sciences. Her thesis explored the role of gender in peer-group perceptions of climate scientists’ media statements, and was published in 2021. With a love of environmental sciences and psychology, working in communications to further climate action is a perfect combination of her interests and experience. She believes using evidence-based techniques to engage diverse stakeholders is key to tackling climate change.

In her spare time, Lauren enjoys trying new things (successfully or unsuccessfully), the outdoors, and reading.

Deepayan Basu Ray

Head of Engagement

Deep is the Head of Engagement at Climate Outreach. He works with governments and international bodies to increase recognition of public engagement as a key component in addressing climate change and meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement.

Deep has worked for 15 years in international and regional forums on arms control and sustainable development; working with civil society and parliamentarians to support more inclusive treaty and policy development processes. Prior to joining Climate Outreach, Deep worked with Pacific Island and Southeast Asian countries to strengthen their national systems, laws and legislation to ensure compliance with a range of UN treaties and agreements. He also established and led the Arms Trade Treaty Monitor project – a civil society initiative to strengthen compliance with the UN Arms Trade Treaty.

Deep holds an MA in International Relations (Sussex University) and a BA in Political Science and Environmental Studies (York University, Canada). He is fluent in Bengali, English, and Hindi. In his spare time he can be found singing, rustling up Indian feasts, and taking his ice hockey fantasy league  ‘commissioner’ duties far too seriously.

Marné Beukes

Project Manager

Marné manages an array of projects across Climate Outreach’s programmes as Project Manager, including the Climate Engagement Initiative project, which works with governments globally to enhance public participation in climate policymaking.

She brings a wealth of experience from different sectors, having worked in the energy, fintech, and not-for-profit sectors. Marné holds a Master’s degree in International Relations at Cambridge University, where her interest in the intersection between climate, politics, and society were first sparked. She is particularly interested in the impact of climate, energy, and power politics on the socio-political security of grassroots communities. She is a qualified project manager and active member of the Association for Project Management. A bit of a spreadsheet geek, she is always on the look-out for innovative ways to tell compelling stories with data.

When not working, she enjoys developing her knowledge through reading, listening to, and visiting anything and everything under the sun.

Alvin David

Head of Finance

Alvin joined Climate Outreach in July 2021 and is our Head of Finance. He is responsible for managing our finances, ensuring strong financial control, and helping to scale up our systems and processes that will support our growth plans. He has 25 years of experience in senior finance roles within large organisations, predominantly in the mineral extraction and construction materials industry.

Whilst Alvin originally trained as an accountant, he also holds an undergraduate degree in Environmental Studies. After some travelling in southeast Asia, he became increasingly interested in the close interconnections between climate change and development. This led to postgraduate studies in Climate Change and Development at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS).

Alvin lives with his family on the Kent coast. He can often be seen enjoying some long cycle rides through the Kent countryside and beyond.

Rose Gater

Science Communications Advisor (Maternity cover)

Rose manages Climate Outreach’s science communication programme (maternity cover) – supporting scientists, researchers and experts on public engagement with climate change. She came to Climate Outreach from the Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST) where she managed the centre’s comms and engagement activity. She previously spent several years in public engagement roles at the University of Exeter, Sustrans and the Wildlife Trusts plus a 6 year stint in the education department at Bristol Zoo.

Passionate about the natural world, Rose was becoming increasingly frustrated at the lack of progress on global environmental issues and undertook a PgCert in Sustainability and Behaviour Change at the Centre for Alternative Technology in 2020. She loves trying to understand what makes people tick and the best ways to inspire meaningful change.

Steve Gerrish

Office Volunteer

Increasingly concerned about climate change from the mid 1990s, Steve could not understand why almost no-one around him shared his concern. Climate Outreach public events from 2005 were addressing this problem, which led to him being active in local climate action groups and taking an interest in building energy use.

Steve worked for the Potato Council for 25 years, providing an information and knowledge transfer service to potato growers. He took redundancy when the organisation relocated to Warwickshire in 2009, which provided opportunities to volunteer for Climate Outreach and to study for MSc Architecture: Advanced Environmental and Energy Studies at the Centre for Alternative Technology.

In late 2011, Steve stepped in to provide part-time support for Carbon Conversations at Climate Outreach, and stayed on as a volunteer. At the same time he trained as a Domestic Energy Assessor and in 2013 began working for a local family firm carrying out energy assessments on new dwellings, and advising architects and builders. Now semi-retired, he continues to work part time as both a volunteer with Climate Outreach and as an energy assessor.

Emma James

Researcher

Emma joined Climate Outreach in December 2021 as a Researcher. This role focuses on helping to design and disseminate quantitative and qualitative social science research for various climate communicators including Local Authorities and Grassroots Campaigners. Emma is excited to combine research with public engagement as she loves learning from data and sharing climate change knowledge in a way that inspires action.

Emma completed an MSc International Environmental Studies degree at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences. Her thesis investigated the use of information as a policy instrument to encourage climate relevant behaviour. A BSc Physical Geography degree at Lancaster University and interning with the British Columbia Council for International Cooperation to research the SDGs are also part of her background. More recently, Emma worked on a climate change programme in local government.

Outside of work, Emma enjoys playing basketball and has played for National, University and Local leagues. If not playing basketball, Emma can often be found walking her dogs!

Alastair Johnstone

Climate Visuals Advisor

Alastair is Climate Visuals Advisor. With a background in photojournalism, he is particularly interested in how you tell stories through photography, and how viewers interact with photographs.

Prior to joining Climate Outreach Alastair was a picture editor at The Times and The Sunday Times newspapers, working on domestic and international news photography. Before this, he trained in photojournalism at the London College of Communication and worked as a newspaper photographer.

Alastair is happiest when taking photographs and riding bicycles, often at the same time, ideally up a hill.

Dr Gurpreet Kaur

Engagement Advisor (Maternity cover)

Gurpreet is the Engagement Advisor at Climate Outreach (maternity cover) working on the Climate Engagement Initiative.

Gurpreet comes from the tiny island-state of Singapore and grew up hearing how a rising sea-level could be disastrous for the country. Being a feminist and a human rights advocate, she then decided to explore the gender – human rights – climate connections in her PhD thesis on postcolonial ecofeminism and literary narratives. During this period, she also had to confront her own health scare which was a direct result of complications surrounding endometriosis. 

After a long and painful battle with endometriosis, which resulted in her being in a wheelchair for 5 years, she ultimately pivoted her focus to international human rights law. She now also raises awareness on endometriosis and disability, and the disproportionate impact it can have on women’s careers and life opportunities. More recently, she has been using her life experiences in exploring the interconnectedness of climate justice, endometriosis and the pink tax. 

In her free time, Gurpreet can be found watching Netflix, and when the fancy strikes, solo-travelling. To give her racing thoughts some sort of structure, she writes.

Léane de Laigue

Communications Lead

Léane leads on disseminating our insights and resources in a way that creates the biggest impact possible. She started her career as a Marketing Manager for Johnson & Johnson, before deciding to become a history teacher. She was asked to teach an Environmental Studies class without any previous experience in the subject, and learning and talking about climate change with her students completely changed her worldview. She has since dedicated herself to public engagement with climate change, working for the David Suzuki Foundation and now Climate Outreach.

Léane’s life has been evenly split between Canada, France, the UK and the US, with a bit of time in Hong Kong and Argentina. She is a native speaker of English and French, speaks Spanish and is currently learning Mandarin. She holds a Master’s degree in Environment and Management (Canada) and an MBA in Marketing (US) as well as undergraduate degrees in Education (Canada) and Humanities (France). In her spare time she can be found climbing mountains, kayaking, reading graphic novels and sometimes unicycling.

Abishek Maroli

Project Manager

Abishek joined Climate Outreach in August 2020 and is a part of the organisation’s project management team. He has 9 years of experience working in the Indian development sector, operating across domains such as capacity building, organisation development & social sector consulting, helping NGOs ramp up their reach & operations. 

Having experienced the impacts of climate change in his home country (India) first-hand, Abishek is keen to be a part of the solution to the global climate crisis by sensitising people to the gravity of the challenge. He holds an MSc in Climate Change, Development, and Policy (UK), and an undergraduate degree in Management Studies (India). 

Abishek grew up in a multicultural home and can speak three Indian regional languages. Outside of work, Abishek is most often found trying to balance his love for food with his love for training and playing sports.

Luisa Melloh

Researcher

Luisa joined Climate Outreach in September 2021. In her current role as Researcher, she enjoys designing and analysing research and turning empirical data into actionable insights.

Her first experience of climate change action was on a youth exchange with an Indonesian partner church, in which participants developed playful ways of engaging primary school students in Germany and Indonesia in pro-environmental behaviours.

After graduating with an MA in Sustainable Development and an MSc in Migration Studies, Luisa supported the Sector Project on Migration at the German development agency (GIZ). She then worked at St Antony’s College as a Research Manager for the Europe’s Stories project and PA to Timothy Garton Ash. As part of this, she co-authored a chapter on young Europeans’ views on free movement in the EU.

Luisa is a German native and, in addition to English, is trying to revive her Indonesian, which stems from a year of living in West Papua. In her free time, she enjoys singing, playing the piano, hiking, and amateur rock climbing.

Fahmida Miah

Project Manager

Fahmida is a Project Manager at Climate Outreach, helping deliver a range of the organisation’s projects. Fahmida has spent much of her career in the charity sector, her role at Media Trust saw her lead programmes of free training, mentoring, and resources for UK charities. She has also supported charities and newsrooms in embedding inclusivity and intersectionality into their storytelling to better reflect lived experience.

She holds a BA Hons in English, an APM Project Management Qualification and has completed a Level 4 Project Manager Apprenticeship.

Being a second generation British Bangladeshi, and with Bangladesh being a particularly climate vulnerable country, Fahmida has a deep interest in the intersections of racial and climate justice. Alongside work, she helps run Bangladeshi Diaspora Climate Action (BDCA), a network of UK Bangladeshi professionals leveraging their expertise to support climate mitigation and adaptation in Bangladesh and build climate awareness in their community.

You can also often find her painting, reading, or exploring London’s parks and food markets!

Siri Pantzar

Project Manager

Siri is part of the Project Management team at Climate Outreach, ensuring the organisation’s diverse project portfolio stays on track. She draws from a range of disciplines in order to create and run projects that are inclusive, effective, and responsive to change. Her interests include feminist leadership, systems thinking, design thinking and agile project management, and much of her experience is in non-hierarchical environments. Siri has a Masters’ Degree in Global Environment, Politics and Society from the University of Edinburgh.

In her free time, Siri enjoys the Scottish outdoors near her home in Edinburgh, when she’s not visiting her family in Finland. She is an active part of the local art community and you can often find her juggling with fire, drumming, or organising performances around the city. Siri originally joined Climate Outreach as an Executive Assistant in September 2020; she is also a Trustee of Wellbeing Economy Alliance Scotland.

David Powell

Senior Engagement Advisor

David leads our Climate Engagement Lab, which helps communicators tell new climate stories. He also leads our work with the business community to help them engage the public effectively on climate change. 

David has nearly two decades of experience as a campaigner, communicator, researcher and strategist on environment and climate change. He’s worked as Head of Environment and Green Transition at the New Economics Foundation and senior campaigner on economics and resources at Friends of the Earth. He has a MA in English Literature, an MSc in Environmental Strategy, and a Graduate Diploma in Economics. He’s particularly interested in the intersection between systems change and individual psychology, and how to build campaigns that harness the deeply held concerns we all have about the climate crisis.

Outside of work he hosts the climate psychology podcast, Your Brain on Climate, and until 2022 was co-host of Sustainababble. He is also the chair of Somerset Wildlands, and spends whatever time there is left running and playing the sax.

Kiran Rai

Head of Project Management

Kiran is Climate Outreach’s Head of Project Management, overseeing the delivery of the organisation’s diverse project portfolio. He brings project management experience from a wide range of fields including environmental engineering, climate campaigning and digital communications. Kiran started his career in an environmental consultancy in his homeland of New Zealand, stemming from a keen interest in sustainability and problem-solving. This, along with his digital skills and enthusiasm for new challenges, led him to work in project teams in several organisations, most recently Tearfund, before joining Climate Outreach.

Kiran was born and raised in Auckland, New Zealand, with extended family roots coming from Nepal and England. He and his wife Rebekah moved to the UK in 2019, and now call West London their home. Kiran holds a BE (Hons) in Environmental Engineering from the University of Auckland. Outside of work, you’ll probably find him reading, playing guitar, searching for good coffee, or hosting games nights. 

Alex Randall

Senior Engagement Advisor

Alex manages the Climate Change and Migration Coalition – an alliance that exists to challenge the lack of long-term strategies to support and protect people at risk of displacement linked to environmental change. Before joining Climate Outreach, he worked at the Centre for Alternative Technology. He has also worked for the Public Interest Research Centre on their Values and Frames project. He co-founded Cheat Neutral, a spoof offsetting company, and UN Fair Play, an organisation that works with small island states at international climate change negotiations.

Raphene Rose

Executive Assistant

Raphene is Climate Outreach’s Executive Assistant, working closely with the Leadership Team and Board of Trustees to provide administrative support.

She developed her skill at providing efficient business support in both the private and non-profit sectors, including at a global fintech company, a private equity firm and a small faith-based charity. Working in a broad array of organisations revealed her passion for collaborating with a variety of people to drive solutions and increase organisational effectiveness. 

Raphene earned her BA in Politics and International Studies at the University of Warwick. Being immersed in the environment of a modern university with a highly international student body, her studies and the lived experiences of her peers highlighted the pressing reality of climate change. Through her role at Climate Outreach and her voluntary campaigning work with climate-focused NGOs, Raphene strives to make a positive impact.

Outside of work, Raphene enjoys gym classes and long walks in nature, travelling, eating out with friends and Jamaican food with loved ones. She has basic competency in French and is learning – much to the joy of her fiancé – Czech.

Dr Christopher Shaw

Head of Research

Chris has been with Climate Outreach’s research team since 2015. In that role, he has been focused on ensuring climate communication practice is informed by a robust and up-to-date evidence base, combining new research with the existing literature to provide communicators with accessible resources to support their work. Chris’s work has been driven by a belief that successful climate policies are those policies that are shaped by the voices, concerns and aspirations of the people who live their lives outside of the policy and campaigning bubble. Chris completed his doctoral thesis as a mature student in 2011 at the University of Sussex, on the communication of climate risk, a theme he continues to publish on. 

In his previous lives Chris worked as a Geography teacher and then in marketing, always with the ultimate aim of learning how to engage people with climate change risks. Between completing his doctoral studies and starting work at Climate Outreach, Chris held research posts at the University of Sussex and the University of Oxford. Outside of office hours Chris can normally be found either smashing his tennis racket on the ground in frustration at yet another defeat, or wandering aimlessly on the South Downs and blaming inaccurate Ordnance Survey maps for being lost.

Emma Stilts

Australia Project Manager

Emma joined Climate Outreach in 2022. She is working in (and for) Australia to harness the community concern about climate change and extreme weather events into community built consensus on climate action.

Emma joins Climate Outreach with a broad range of experience. After completing a Bachelor of Design (Graphic) from The University of Newcastle, she has worked in the UK, USA and Australia. She has worked for corporate, NGO and governmental organisations. Emma has a strong background in community organising, communication, education and engagement programs. She has worked with James Cook University, Australia Council for the Arts in community led climate adaptation projects.

Emma is co-founder of Manilla Community Renewable Energy inc. (MCRE) Over many years this not-for-profit group has developed broad community support and works with corporate, community and government partners to develop a 4.9mW PV solar farm. MCRE is born from the aim to show the alternative to proposed local coal and gas exploration projects. The future is renewable.

Emma is an artist and basketball coach who enjoys music and fun. Emma and her family live near Moore Creek on Gamilaroi Lands, Australia.

Dr Susie Wang

Senior Research Consultant

Susie is a Senior Research Consultant at Climate Outreach, and is responsible for the design, execution and delivery of quantitative and qualitative social science research on a range of projects. She has a background in environmental and social psychology, and comes to Climate Outreach after completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Groningen, in the Netherlands, and her PhD at the University of Western Australia. 

Growing up in Australia, Susie was figuring out what to do with her life in the confusing context of the country’s acute vulnerability to climate change (extreme heat, bushfires, and drought) and politically polarised landscape of climate delay and denial.  For this reason, Susie is interested in the factors that lead people to feel close to climate change, particularly the role of emotions, identity and social connections. Her work spans climate change communications, imagery, pro-environmental behaviours, neuroscience, and behavioural economics. Aside from English, Susie also speaks Mandarin, and is attempting to learn Dutch. She is based in the Netherlands, where she enjoys making art, climbing rocks, and growing food in her backyard.

Martha Wiltshire

Organisational Development Manager

Martha joined Climate Outreach in 2018 as the Executive Assistant, moved to the project management team in 2020, and is now working in the Operations Department as the Organisational Development Manager – supporting Climate Outreach to grow sustainably within our organisational values. She is particularly passionate about developing and implementing systems that have wellbeing at the heart of them, while improving cross-team effectiveness and collaboration.

Martha’s background is in project management, executive coordination and supporting projects for local community organisations such as Good Food Oxford, Refill Oxford and Tandem Collective, as well as international NGOs such as the South African based Children’s Radio Foundation. It was while working at the Children’s Radio Foundation that she saw how providing a platform for people to tell their stories to their own communities can lead to social transformation.

Martha holds a BA in Geography from the University of Oxford and a Postgraduate Certificate in Sustainability and Adaptation from the Centre for Alternative Technology. She is a keen musician and plays cello, piano and accordion, and is a member of the collective, “Folkatron Sessions”.

Nameerah Hameed (Maternity leave)

Engagement Advisor

Nameerah joined Climate Outreach as an Engagement Advisor working on Climate Engagement Initiative, an ambitious and multi-partner project that aims to influence the outcomes of the UNFCCC negotiations on Action for Climate Empowerment (ACE), and to support governments to strengthen their national public engagement initiatives.

She is also the founder of Women In Energy Pakistan, working to build a strong community of female professionals and foster a culture of career and leadership development.

With ten years of experience, Nameerah has worked in the nexus of energy and climate policy in the UK, USA and Pakistan. She formerly served as a Policy Specialist in the Government in Pakistan working on renewable energy and energy efficiency with development partners. She studied Energy, Resources and Environment at The Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in USA.

Tara Bryer (Maternity leave)

Science Communications Advisor

Tara manages Climate Outreach’s science communication programme – supporting scientists, researchers and experts on public engagement with climate change. Before joining Climate Outreach, Tara trained researchers on public engagement at Cancer Research UK and ran science clubs with Science Oxford. Tara completed her Msc. in Science Communication at Imperial College London in 2014 and is also a PRINCE2 accredited project manager.

Tara will be on maternity leave until 31st March 2024.

Jenny Gellatly (Maternity leave)

Advocacy Communications Coordinator and Assistant Researcher

Jenny is coordinator and assistant researcher for our Advocacy Communications work, focusing on providing civil society campaigners with knowledge and tools to help them engage diverse people on climate change. She has over fifteen years’ experience working in the community, environmental, and arts sectors, specialising in designing, managing and delivering projects and processes that facilitate dialogue, exchange and action around ecological and social challenges.  She is co-founder of School Farm Community Supported Agriculture, where she spent 6 years as the Education and Outreach Coordinator.  Prior to working at Climate Outreach she worked as a Creative Associate and Project Manager with arts organisation, Encounters, and as the Coordinator of Transition Town Totnes, a charity focused on collective action to radically reduce energy and material use and build community resilience.

Jenny studied Environmental Geography and International Development at the University of East Anglia, leading to an interest in human scale development and post development approaches.  In her spare time, she loves to read, spend time outdoors, organise with others, and to explore new stories we could live by.

Trustees


Camilla Born

Chair of Trustees

Camilla Born is a political strategist, policy advisor and activist specialising in climate diplomacy, security and risk. She is committed to finding solutions for wicked problems. Her work addresses climate change as a systemic risk to our cultures, societies, economies and political systems. She is currently on secondment to the UK Cabinet Office as Deputy Director of Strategy in the COP 26 team. Prior to this appointment she supported the UK’s leadership role on adaptation and resilience at the UK’s Department for International Development and was a Senior Policy Advisor at E3G. She is also a Senior Fellow with the Stockholm International Peace and Research Institute (SIPRI) and the very proud Chair of Climate Outreach.

Phil Bloomer

Trustee

Phil is the Executive Director of Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, a digital action platform that empowers human rights advocates in civil society, business, government; tracks the human rights performance of over 9,000 companies around the world; and seeks corporate accountability for around 550 allegations of abuse each year. The Resource Centre also presses for policy and practice that drive fast and fair transitions to zero carbon economies; uphold labour rights; and protect civic freedoms .

Phil was previously the Director of Campaigns and Policy at Oxfam, where he led global campaigns on climate justice, trade and investment for development, access to medicines, and major humanitarian crises. Phil worked for 11 years in Central America and Colombia working on human rights, especially indigenous rights, and broader economic justice.

Becky Buell

Trustee

Becky Buell is a senior practitioner and Board member of the Presencing Institute and a Research Fellow at the MIT Community Innovators Lab.  An experienced senior executive, with over 25 years’ work in the not-for-profit sector and 8 years leading a successful company. She has extensive international experience in strategy, organisational development and business planning, and is an experienced convenor of multi-sector dialogues.  She worked with Oxfam for over 15 years in Latin America and later in the Campaigns and Policy Department in Oxford.  She was a co-founder and partner at Meteos, a research and consultancy organisation specialising in multi-sector dialogues.  She currently works independently as an executive coach and consultant.  In addition to being a Board member of Climate Outreach, she is a Board member of the Presencing Institute. She is a US-UK bi-national, living in Oxford, UK.

Ludovic Phalippou

Trustee

Ludovic ride road bikes, routinely taste great wines, work (a bit) on food-waste reduction, forests (carbon captures) and diversity/inclusion initiatives. In his spare time, he is a Faculty member of the Said Business School at the University of Oxford, and head the Finance Accounting and Management Economics group. He is also a Fellow at The Queen’s College.

Over the last twenty years, Ludovic has been actively researching the private equity industry. He has published about ten articles in leading academic journals on the subject which have been downloaded nearly 100,000 times and cited more than 3000 times. His work has been featured in the media internationally (including The Economist, Financial Times, The New York Times). He has been fortunate to work directly with a number of large institutional investors regarding their private equity investment decisions as well as benchmarking systems. He has been teaching private equity for ten years to MBA/EMBA students, and developed a variety of executive education courses, including customized programs for leading consulting companies and asset managers.

Faiza Farooq

Treasurer

Faiza Farooq is the treasurer trustee of Climate Outreach UK and is involved in the development of the financial risk management initiative within the organization. She is a career financial regulator, and risk consultant with a focus on capital risk management within the banking and investment firms markets. Her work has encompassed working with top banking sector organisations on regulatory issues ranging from consumer deposit protection to the impact of climate risk on banking business models.

Faiza is committed to working with financial and financial logistics organisations to address the impact of climate change risk on financial consumers. As part of her work, she works with financial institutions to understand the financial impact of climate change risk and understand long term strategic options to achieve net zero before 2050. Faiza has extensive experience as a Board effectiveness reviewer and is a seasoned risk manager. She has a passion for climate justice and management of the financial impact of climate change risk.

Faiza is a Pakistani/UK bi-national currently residing in London. She also works with diversity networks and engages senior stakeholders to ensure equitable outcomes and well-being initiatives for those in employment within the consulting sector. In her spare time, Faiza is a nail art and watercolour painting enthusiast, in addition to having trained as a hip-hop and belly dancer.

Research Advisory Board


Dr Zoe Leviston

Australian National University

Zoe Leviston is a Research Fellow at the Australian National University. Her work applies social psychological theory to investigate how individuals, groups, and culture shape people’s responses to climate change and other environmental issues. She is especially interested in how group processes and social norms influence people’s attitudes and behaviours, and the role of collective action in ‘mainstreaming’ meaningful climate action.

Before commencing with the Australian National University in 2020, Zoe was a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at Edith Cowan University, and a research scientist at the CSIRO – Australia’s peak science body. She has worked alongside a variety of community representatives, Catchment Management Authorities, farmers, agricultural scientists, economists, atmospheric scientists, and a range of stakeholders from state and federal government departments.

Prof Edward Maibach

George Mason University

Edward Maibach, MPH, PhD is a Distinguished University Professor and Director of George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication (Mason 4C).  At Mason 4C, Ed co-directs the Climate Change in the American Mind polling project (with Yale’s Anthony Leiserowitz), is the principal investigator of Climate Matters (a climate reporting resources program that supports TV weathercasters as local climate educators, produced in partnership with Climate Central) and provides strategic direction to the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health (an education and advocacy initiative that currently involves 29 national medical societies in the U.S.).

Prof Ezra Markowitz

University of Massachusetts Amherst

Ezra Markowitz, Ph.D.is Associate Professor of Environmental Decision-Making in the Department of Environmental Conservation at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. His research and teaching focus on the intersection of decision-making, persuasive communication, public engagement with science, and environmental sustainability. He is particularly interested and expert in the practical application of behavioral science to improve individuals’ and communities’ environmental decision-making; he also has deep expertise in the field of climate change communication and public engagement.

He is the author of over four dozen peer-reviewed research papers, book chapters, and reports, including the 2015 Connecting on Climate guide to climate change communication. At UMass Amherst, Markowitz teaches courses on Environmental Decision-Making, Conservation Social Science, and Public Engagement and Communication for Scientists. He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Sciences, Studies & Policy and an M.S. in Psychology from the University of Oregon, as well as a B.A. in Psychology from Vassar College. Markowitz is also a Fellow with the FrameWorks Institute.

Prof Saffron O’Neill

University of Exeter

Saffron O’Neill is an Associate Professor in Geography at the University of Exeter, UK. Her interdisciplinary research explores the social science dimensions of climate variability and climate change, particularly in terms of climate change communication and public engagement. Her work examines the diverse places in which people experience climate change in their everyday lives: from personal attachments to valued places, to interactions on social media.

Her particular area of expertise is in the visual communication of climate change. Her research has explored climate imagery in different media, across nations, and over time; and what this means for how people engage with climate change. She supervises a fantastic group of PhD students who are all undertaking research in communication-related topics: from how climate change is communicated online, youth attitudes to climate change, communicating adaptation, to communicating about seasonal climate forecasts.

Dr James Painter

University of Oxford

James Painter is a research associate at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Department of Politics and International Relations at Oxford University, a senior teaching associate at the Environmental Change Institute, School of Geography, also at Oxford, and an external collaborator at the LEAP project at the Oxford Martin School.  He has published widely on climate change in the media in several countries.  His current research interests include media portrayals of extreme weather events, animal agriculture and climate change, climate scepticism, and more widely on the challenges of climate journalism and the emergence of climate niche sites.

Prof Linda Steg

University of Groningen

Linda Steg is professor of environmental psychology at the University of Groningen. She studies factors influencing sustainable behaviour, the effects and acceptability of strategies aimed at promoting sustainable behaviour, and public perceptions of technology and system changes. She is member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW), and lead author of the IPCC special report on 1.5°C and AR6.  She participates in various interdisciplinary and international research programmes, and collaborates with practitioners working in industry, governments and NGOs.

Prof Lorraine Whitmarsh

University of Bath

Professor Lorraine Whitmarsh, MBE, is an environmental psychologist, specialising in perceptions and behaviour in relation to climate change, energy and transport, based in the Department of Psychology, University of Bath. She is Director of the ESRC-funded UK Centre for Climate Change and Social Transformations (CAST). She regularly advises governmental and other organisations on low-carbon behaviour change and climate change communication, and is Lead Author for IPCC’s Working Group II Sixth Assessment Report. Her research projects have included studies of energy efficiency behaviours, waste reduction and carrier bag reuse, perceptions of smart technologies and electric vehicles, low-carbon lifestyles, and responses to climate change. 

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