Academic Interests
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.
Karen’s recent books include You Matter More Than You Think: Quantum Social Change for a Thriving World and Climate and Society: Transforming the Future (with Robin Leichenko). She is a co-chair of the International Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) transformative change assessment. In 2021 she was co-recipient of the BBVA Foundation's Frontiers of Knowledge Award for Climate Change. She is passionate about what potential there is in quantum social theory and the implications for climate change responses. She has earlier been involved in the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Global Change Programmes and the transition to Future Earth, a 10-year global change research initiative. She is the co-founder of cCHANGE, an Oslo-based organization that engages individuals and organizations with transformations to sustainability.
- SGO2301 - Environment and Society
- SGO3200 - Environment and Innovation
- SGO4301 - Global Environmental Change
Background
- B.A. in International Relations at the College of William and Mary, 1985
- M.S. in Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1990
- Ph.D. in Geography at the Pennsylvania State University, 1995
- Post-doc at the North American Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), 1996
- Senior Research Fellow at CICERO, 1997-2005
- 20% position in the Department of Human Geography, 2001
- Professor in Human Geography, 2005
Awards
- 2021 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge award for Climate Change
- 2020 Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa at Linköpings University, Sweden
- 2019 Award for Excellence in Research, Human Dimensions of Global Change Speciality Group, American Association of Geographers (AAG).
- 2015 University of Oslo Student Parliament's Teaching Award
- 2011 Burtoni Prize for Adaptation Research
- 2008 AAG Meridian Book Award (with Robin Leichenko) for ”Environmental Change and Globalization: Double Exposures”
- Shared in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awared to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Positions Held
- 2021- present - Co-chair, IPBES transformative change assessment.
- 2020 - Member of Scoping Group for IPBES Assessment Report on Transformative Change.
- 2017 – 2019 Science Committee, Transformations 2018, Santiago, Chile.
- 2017 – 2019 Scientific Committee, Nordic Conference on Climate Change Adaptation, Norrköping 2018, Sweden.
- 2016 – 2017 Science Committee, Transformations 2017: Transformations in Practice Conference, Dundee 2017.
- 2014 – 2015 Science Committee, Our Common Future in a Changing Climate Conference, Paris 2015.
- 2013 – 2015 Member of Science Committee, Future Earth.
- 2012 – 2014 Transdisciplinary Advisory Board member, EU Joint Programming Initiative –Climate Change.
- 2012 – 2014 Core Writing Team Member for the Synthesis Report (SYR), IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, and Topic 3 Co-Facilitator
- 2012 – 2014 Author, Summary for Policy Makers, IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, Working Group II.
- 2009 – 2014 Lead Author, IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, Working Group II, Chapter 20.
- 2012 – 2014 Board Member, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo.
- 2011 -- 2013 Chair of Working Group "Towards a Revolution in Education and Capacity Building" for ESF-COST Forward Look RESCUE Project
- 2011– 2013 Member, Transition Team, 10-year Initiative on Earth System Science for Global Sustainability. Co-Chair of Working Group on “Research Vision”.
- 2009 – 2012 Coordinating Lead Author of Chapter 8 of the IPCC SREX report