Professor Karen McNamara

Professorial Research Fellow (ARC F

School of the Environment
Faculty of Science
karen.mcnamara@uq.edu.au
+61 7 336 56069

Overview

Karen is a Professor and ARC Future Fellow in the School of the Environment at UQ. She is ultimately interested in how people experience and can improve their capacities to respond to the triple crises of poverty, disaster risk, and climate change. Karen has been undertaking applied and policy-relevant research in resilient livelihoods, non-economic loss and damage, community-based adaptation, human mobility, and gender for close to 20 years, partnering with governments, and inter-governmental and non-governmental organisations throughout the Asia-Pacific region. She has published over 110 journal papers and book chapters, and over 70 reports, online commentaries, and policy briefs.

Karen is currently in the final stages of an ARC Future Fellowship, which is a partnership with local grassroots organisations and researchers to deeply explore loss and damage as a result of environmental change and identify ways of responding in Australia, the Cook Islands, Fiji, and Vanuatu. She recently led a project for the Vanuatu Government to ascertain how the impacts of climate change impinge on people's human rights, as part of the Government's quest for climate justice through the International Court of Justice. She also recently led a project for the OECD looking at climate change adaptation governance across the Pacific Islands region. She is currently involved in an ARC Discovery project on everyday experiences of sea-level rise and relocation in Fiji and the Maldives. Karen has recently completed two ARC Linkage projects, one of which evaluated 32 community-based adaptation initiatives in 20 rural communities across Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati and Vanuatu. Here, Karen and others identified four interdependent points for optimising future adaptation whereby initiatives are wholly led by local people and institutions. Karen has managed 27 research and capacity building grants as lead or named CI totalling over AU$6.4 million for the ARC, Australian Government, DFAT, Scope Global, United Nations Development Programme, and others.

Karen has supervised 13 PhD students to completion (8 as Principal) who have gone onto exciting roles in universities, the United Nations and consultancy firms. She is currently supervising 5 PhD students, teaches a large course on Applied Research Methods each year and has recently developed a UQ 'flagship' course for undergraduate students on 'Complexity, Action, and Sustainable Futures'. She is Editor of Asia Pacific Viewpoint and PLOS Climate and is on several editorial boards. She was the Inaugural 'Environment' Theme Lead for UQ's Global Development Hub (2021-2022).

Prior to taking up her position at UQ, Karen was a Research Consultant at the University of the South Pacific based in Fiji (2011-2012). From 2008-2011, Karen was based in Cairns at James Cook University managing major research projects in the Wet Tropics rainforest and Torres Strait for the Marine and Tropical Sciences Research Facility and National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility. Prior to this, Karen worked for the NSW Government (2007) and in various roles at the University of New South Wales (2002-2006).

Karen proudly comes from the small town of Quirindi, which is Kamilaroi Country, on the Liverpool Plains in NSW. Growing up in a small, close-knit country town sparked Karen’s interest in social, development and environmental issues in rural communities.

Qualifications

  • Doctor of Philosophy, University of New South Wales
  • Bachelor of Environmental Science, University of New South Wales

Publications

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Grants

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Supervision

  • Doctor Philosophy

  • Doctor Philosophy

  • Doctor Philosophy

View all Supervision

Publications

Book Chapter

Journal Article

Other Outputs

Grants (Administered at UQ)

PhD and MPhil Supervision

Note for students: Professor Karen McNamara is not currently available to take on new students.

Current Supervision

  • Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor

  • Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor

    Other advisors:

  • Doctor Philosophy — Principal Advisor

    Other advisors:

  • Doctor Philosophy — Associate Advisor

    Other advisors:

Completed Supervision