Karen O'Brien

Karen O'Brien, a professor in the Department of Sociology and Human Geography at the University of Oslo, is an expert on the human and social dimensions of global environmental change. 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 promotes integrative approaches to sustainability that recognize how beliefs, values, worldviews, and paradigms influence systems change and social change.

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.