Karen Bickerstaff

Karen Bickerstaff is an academic and Professor in Human Geography at the University of Exeter. She is interested in the place-based dimensions of environmental risks, particularly related to energy infrastructure projects. For instance, she is currently working on a project (2024-28) that addresses the governance of place-based sustainability contestations (e.g. around energy infrastructure, food production). Karen is a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellow (Re-forming Carbon Societies. 2023-24) and a core member of the ESRC-funded ACCESS network (Accelerating Capacity in Climate and Environmental Social Science, 2023-27). She led the ACCESS Net Zero Task Force (2023-24) and the report Making a Net Zero Society – Follow the Social Science (Bickerstaff et al, 2024). She edits the journal Geo: Geography and Environment.