Sarah Boddington

PhD Candidate
Crawford School of Public Policy

Sarah is a PhD candidate at the Resources, Environment and Development Department of the Crawford School of Public Policy at the Australian National University, supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program (AGRTP) Scholarship. Her PhD focuses on what enables the adoption of lower carbon practices and broad-based support for climate action policy. She is currently undertaking three research projects:

  1. The Lower Carbon Practice Framework - a review of what shapes lower carbon practices.

  2. A qualitative study exploring the perspectives and strategies used by Unconventional Climate Advocates, funded by the Australian Research Council, led by co-investigators A/Prof Bec Colvin, Prof Winnifred Louis, and Prof Kelly Fielding.

  3. The Canberra Community Cooktops Research Study, a qualitative study exploring community perspectives on decisions around cooktops, in partnership with an Environmental NGO.

Sarah presented on her research projects to the Climate Council Councilors’ Group in July 2023, the University of Queensland in August 2023, the Economics Department of the Crawford School at the Australian National University in September 2023, and as part of a Symposium to the Annual Conference of the Society of Australasian Psychologists in November 2023.

Collaborations

Sarah co-founded a seminar series called “Society and Climate Change” in 2022, which is strengthening networks and exchanges of ideas across ANU faculties and with policymakers and other institutions. She was chosen to be one of 18 Future Leaders Program Fellows, at the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse at the Australian National University in 2023. She worked with the Humanitarian Advisory Group on reducing the carbon and environmental impact in humanitarian aid responses in 2022. She was also an academic committee member on the ANU Below Zero committee in 2022.

Previous career in social and systems change

Prior to commencing the PhD, Sarah had a policy and program career focused on processes of social and systems change. For 15 years, she was a leader in international development, including living and working with local change-makers in Nepal, Cambodia, Mongolia and Pakistan. With the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), she managed Australia’s aid program to Nepal and Australia’s humanitarian response to the 2015 Nepal earthquakes, for which she was awarded an Order of Australia Medal for Humanitarian Services in 2017. From 2017 to 2020, as Director, Governance, DFAT, she co-led the Developmental Leadership Program Phase 2 and 3. In Phase 3, this $3 million program explored the role and nature of developmental leadership in sustainable development in Asia and the Pacific, in collaboration with the University of Birmingham and La Trobe University.

Gulliver, Robyn E., Vachette, Astrid, and Boddington, Sarah, 2023. How Australian environmental non-governmental organisations frame and enact climate justice. NPJ Climate Action, DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-023-00049-2