Her research focuses on urban sustainability, land-use planning and climate change and the implications for policy and governance particularly at the local and regional scale. She has worked for both the public and private sectors in the urban planning and sustainability policy domains.
Over recent years she has worked on a range of applied climate change research projects with local and state government and community sector organisations. She is one of the co-founders of The Climate Change Exchange a not-for-profit hosted by CUR, that is committed to the goals of justice, equity and ecological sustainability in working towards a climate resilience future. The Climate Change Exchange aims to build the capabilities of organisations to make evidence-informed decisions and take actions that target the drivers of risks and vulnerabilities.
Susie has a particular interest in local climate change governance and has worked with and researched local governments and alliances for a number of years. Her post-doctoral research at the Centre for Design, RMIT as part of the Carbon Neutral Communities ARC linkage project (2007–2010), incorporated both quantitative and qualitative methods to address the technical assessment and social and economic factors in community’s transition to carbon neutrality. This led to further research around changing social practices in the context of climate change.
She has partnered for a number of years with the Western Alliance for Greenhouse Action (WAGA) on the ‘How Well Are We Adapting? project (2014-2020) which involved co-designing a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for Climate Change Adaptation for local governments (see http://adapt.waga.com.au/).
Susie along, with Professor Ralph Horne, was a co-investigator on a four year international comparative network supported by the European Science Research Council (ESRC) titled ‘Low Carbon Urban Transitions: a Comparative International Network‘. The network included researchers from the UK, China, India, South Africa and the US. Susie co-edited the 2018 book ‘Local Action on Climate Change: Pathways and Opportunities and Constraints’, Routledge , UK , along with Professor Hartmut Funfgeld (Freiburg University) and Prof Mikael Granberg (Karlstad University).
She has also co-authored a book about urban planning and sustainability in Melbourne with Professor’s Robin Goodman and Michael Buxton ‘Planning Melbourne: Lessons for a Sustainable City’ published by CSIRO in 2016.
Expert commentary on...
Urban planning, Urban policy and governance, Urban sustainability, Climate change policy and practice, Social practice change, Community engagement.