Dr. Jennifer Rao-Williams has been a postdoctoral research associate at the University of Leuphana Lüneburg since January 2020 working on the TRANSFORM project and GLOCULL Globally and Locally-sustainable food-water-energy innovation in Urban Living Labs. Their research knowledge focuses on multi-actor learning in contexts of resilience and wider sustainability challenges of stressed environments and communities such as climate disadvantage and social injustice. They are particularly interested in fostering creative practices that can enable pathways towards transformative futures, particularly around aspects of resilience and consciousness.
Before joining the TRANSFORM team, Jennifer launched an ethical start-up that embraces circular economy through design through the Elevator UK Accelerator program, and are a Circular Tayside Business Ambassador. Jennifer also coordinated the HR Excellence in Research Award and associated inter-sectorial and enterprise activities relating to the Concordat to Support the Career Development of Researchers at the University of Dundee.
Jennifer holds a PhD in Human Geography from the University of Dundee, Scotland which focused on multi-actor learning in disaster risk reduction contexts in collaboration with the Scottish Government Resilience Division (awarded 2019). Prior to this, Jennifer obtained an MRes in Sustainable Development from the University of St Andrews investigating how resilience framing influences effective policy implementation.
