Profile

Dr. Sarah Burch

Assistant Professor

Bio

Sarah Burch is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Management at the University of Waterloo. She was formerly Banting Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia’s Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability. Her research focuses on urban climate change governance, with an emphasis on practical, integrated approaches to sustainability. Sarah currently explores the dynamics of potentially transformative community-level innovation in response to climate change, and the drivers of emerging partnerships between the private and public sectors. This action-oriented and interdisciplinary research supports communities as they transition towards sustainability and fills a critical gap in our understanding of transformative development path shifts. Sarah writes and teaches about holistic and equitable strategies for building resilient, low-carbon communities. Sarah holds a PhD in Resource Management and Environmental Studies from the University of British Columbia, Canada, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford. She was a Contributing Author to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, in both Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability) and Working Group III (Mitigation of Climate Change).