Karen O’Brien

Karen O’Brien is an internationally recognized expert on the human and social dimensions of global environmental change, and her research focuses on themes related to climate change impacts, vulnerability, and adaptation. She is interested in how transdisciplinary and integral approaches to global change research can contribute to a better understanding of how societies both create and respond to change, and particularly the role of beliefs, values and worldview in transformations to sustainability. She is committed to understanding and engaging with equitable transformations to a thriving world. She promotes integrative approaches to sustainability that recognize how beliefs, values, worldviews, and paradigms influence systems change and social change. Karen is currently focusing on how to scale transformative change, and exploring the potential for quantum social change in theory and practice.