Karen is a Research Fellow in Low Carbon Policy and Governance at the Transport Studies Unit, in Oxford University’s Centre for the Environment. She has a wide ranging interest in governance issues, emanating from her degree in Law and International Politics (Keele, 2002), and her MSc in Environment and Development (Reading, 2003). She spent 5 years working for a variety of climate change and environmental NGOs including The Climate Group, Sustainable Energy Action, the Environment Investigation Agency and the Living Earth Foundation.
Then Karen moved to the University of Oxford to conduct an international comparative study for a DPhil entitled Sub-national government responses to reducing the climate impact of cars, in the School of Geography and the Environment. Since then she has concentrated more on governance issues that relate to climate change and the need for institutional and organisational restructuring. Consequently, she has been working on a series of EU projects since 2012.
Karen’s primary research focus is on investigating and understanding the organisational governance and policy implementation processes necessary to decarbonise the transport sector and the societal changes required to deliver low carbon transport at various scales.
Karen has also run EnviroConsulting as an independent consultant for 7 years, working for a wide range of clients across the public, private and non-profit sectors including UN Habitat, Global Action Plan, Reading Borough Councils and the Universities of East Anglia and Manchester. She is a Trustee of the Climate Outreach and Information Network and serves on the Henley Transport Project Advisory Board.