Find a Climate Presenter

Anaïs Pronovost-Morgan

Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) - Faculty of Science 

Anaïs is passionate about climate justice and how to foster better communication between citizens and their governments to build more inclusive climate futures. Her research interests lie at the intersection of environmental humanities, sustainability, arts education, and Indigenous-settler relationships in Canada. 

She recently graduated from Cambridge University with an MPhil degree in Arts, Creativities, and Education, where she investigated how arts education can help adolescents manage eco-anxiety and climate-related emotions. She is currently pursuing a MA degree at UBC in Resources, Environment, and Sustainability under the supervision of Dr. Gunilla Öberg. Her research explores what emotions are tied to the implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) in Canada and how educators can harness these emotions to promote decolonial learning in government employees.

Marina Tornorsam

Geography - Faculty of Arts

Marina is a MSc student in the department of Geography focusing on the intersection of fire, livelihoods and community health using interdisciplinary approaches including remote sensing. She earned an MSc in Environmental Biology at Mahidol University and completed her BSc in Environmental Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara with an emphasis in ecology. Her previous work has centered on community-based natural resource management, fire dynamics and ecosystem services across Southeast Asia, where she collaborated with local, regional and global partners to strengthen participatory approaches towards climate adaptation. She has experience as a co-designer and facilitator for technical and non-technical training workshops on a variety of topics from gender equality and social inclusion to community-based fire management, and she has led initiatives in research, community-led monitoring, restoration and environmental education. These experiences have deepened her passion and commitment to bridging scientific knowledge with traditional knowledge towards practical, community-led solutions.

Imranul Laskar

Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) - Faculty of Science

Imranul Laskar's research focuses on global shipping emissions, and investigating the air quality, health and climate impacts, and air pollution exposure injustice of shipping for future climate change and air quality policy decision making. His works includes conducting policy analysis to mitigate in-use methane emissions (methane slip) from the use of natural gas as a marine fuel.

He has had the privilege to lead tutorials, mark assignments, develop rubrics and prepare and mark final case studies for several disciplinary and interdisciplinary sustainability-focused courses. He initially sets the learning goals for the tutorials, and designs tutorials in a way that is geared towards the profiles and career interests of the class. This helps students grasp sustainability and system thinking concepts better, and in a personalized manner.

Manvi Bhalla (She/Her)

Institute for Resources, Environment, Sustainability (IRES) - Faculty of Science

Manvi is an activist-scholar with extensive intersectional community organizing experience. She is recognized as one of Canada’s ‘Top 25 Under 25’ environmentalists, ‘Top 30 Under 30’ sustainability leaders and was honoured with the ‘Youth Eco-Hero of the Year’ award in 2022. She co-founded Shake Up The Establishment, a national nonprofit dedicated to climate justice & political advocacy, alongside missINFORMED, a nonprofit focused on health promotion for women and gender-diverse peoples. She serves on numerous advisory committees including UBC’s Robson Square, FES’ The Harbour and Youth Climate Corps. Alongside her advocacy work, Manvi is a published health researcher, frequent public speaker and guest lecturer who works to centre anti-colonial approaches. During her MSc, she investigated barriers towards climate action within the public health sector. Presently, she is a PhD student at University of British Columbia with SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship funding. Her research interests include intersectional health policy making & environmental justice.

Ndey Amie Jobe

International Forestry - Faculty of Forestry

Ndey Amie Jobe is a passionate forester, nutrition and equitable gender advocate for forestry and international governance from The Gambia. She is a registered nurse and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Global Challenges (with a focus on biodiversity conservation and policy) from the African Leadership University in Rwanda. She is resilient, visionary, and deeply committed to creating change that bridges grassroots realities with international policy. She is the founder of EmpowerHer GM, an initiative that promotes agroecology, agroforestry, sustainable agriculture, and women’s empowerment. Through EmpowerHer, I have worked with rural women to advance climate-smart agriculture, food processing, and biodiversity conservation, training over 200 women and planting more than 200 fruit trees to combat deforestation. One of her proudest achievements has been helping reduce post-harvest losses while promoting sustainable livelihoods. Beyond her grassroots work, she served as a Charles R. Wall Young Policy Fellow with the African Wildlife Foundation and the United Nations Environment Programme. She participated in COP15 during the adoption of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and worked on Africa’s wildlife economy. As a research intern with the ALU School of Wildlife Conservation, she contributed to the State of the Wildlife Economy in Africa report. Worked with CorpsAfrica Gambia, where she supervised 12 volunteers implementing sustainability and SDG-focused projects. At UBC, she is currently pursuing a Master of International Forestry. And is excited to deepen her expertise in forestry governance and sustainability, and nature-based solutions, integrating a gender lens into it while also continuing her work with EmpowerHer and using this knowledge to shape inclusive policies that empower communities.

Rosetta Paik 

Political Science - Faculty of Arts

Rosetta Paik is a second-year master’s student in Political Science at the University of British Columbia, specializing in Global Environmental Politics, International Relations, and Asian International Relations. Her research currently follows two main streams: international plastics governance and critical minerals. Outside of academics, Rosetta enjoys crocheting, photography, and attending both community and academic events, always eager to connect ideas (and people) across different spaces.

Marie Boulinaud

Faculty of Forestry

I am from France but have worked and lived in Asia and Africa over the last 15 years, including in Mozambique, Niger, Uganda, Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines. While working as a project manager, global advisor and then consultant in the humanitarian and development sector in these countries, I pursued a MSc in Sustainable Development with a specialism in Natural Resources Management. This has brought me back to the country that I first discovered in 2005 and fell in love with, the Philippines.  My MSc thesis was about the impacts of REDD+ in the Philippines for indigenous peoples’ rights and livelihoods. With this PhD, Im willing to understand more about a specific Indigenous traditional practice, shifting cultivation. I will explore whether this is fair to blame this practice for being a driver of deforestation and whether the Indigenous communities in the Philippines uplands managed to resist policies against its practice. I am also a mother of two and a music lover.

Marina Tornorsam

Geography - Faculty of Arts

Marina is a MSc student in the department of Geography focusing on the intersection of fire, livelihoods and community health using interdisciplinary approaches including remote sensing. She earned an MSc in Environmental Biology at Mahidol University and completed her BSc in Environmental Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara with an emphasis in ecology. Her previous work has centered on community-based natural resource management, fire dynamics and ecosystem services across Southeast Asia, where she collaborated with local, regional and global partners to strengthen participatory approaches towards climate adaptation. She has experience as a co-designer and facilitator for technical and non-technical training workshops on a variety of topics from gender equality and social inclusion to community-based fire management, and she has led initiatives in research, community-led monitoring, restoration and environmental education. These experiences have deepened her passion and commitment to bridging scientific knowledge with traditional knowledge towards practical, community-led solutions.

Chloé Boutron

Political Science - Faculty of Arts

Chloé is a PhD candidate in the Department of Political Science. Her research focuses on the politics of climate policy in fossil fuel exporting democracies, particularly economic climate policy instruments (e.g., carbon pricing, fossil fuel subsidy reform). Before starting her PhD, Chloé worked to assist ministries of finance in Europe as they sought to incorporate climate change considerations in their decision-making processes.

Don Shafer

Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice - Faculty of Arts 

I am a broadcaster, educator, and researcher. My work bridges climate science, communication, and social justice. My MA thesis at SFU explored the science of climate change and the psychology of denial, while my recently completed PhD dissertation at UBC examined how language, power, and identity shape conversations in a polarized world. As a mentor with Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, I focus on how we can speak across difference, whether about climate, race, gender, sexuality or social justice. My teaching spans journalism, ethics, communication, climate and social justice at UBC, BCIT, and City University, where I draw on lived experience and interdisciplinary research to help students connect complex science to human stories. At the heart of my work is a simple question: how can we keep talking—especially with those we disagree with—to foster trust, deepen understanding, and move together toward a more just and sustainable future? 

Imranul Laskar

Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES) - Faculty of Science

Imranul Laskar's research focuses on global shipping emissions, and investigating the air quality, health and climate impacts, and air pollution exposure injustice of shipping for future climate change and air quality policy decision making. His works includes conducting policy analysis to mitigate in-use methane emissions (methane slip) from the use of natural gas as a marine fuel. He has had the privilege to lead tutorials, mark assignments, develop rubrics and prepare and mark final case studies for several disciplinary and interdisciplinary sustainability-focused courses. He initially sets the learning goals for the tutorials, and designs tutorials in a way that is geared towards the profiles and career interests of the class. This helps students grasp sustainability and system thinking concepts better, and in a personalized manner.

Marie Boulinaud

Faculty of Forestry

I am from France but have worked and lived in Asia and Africa over the last 15 years, including in Mozambique, Niger, Uganda, Bangladesh, Indonesia and the Philippines. While working as a project manager, global advisor and then consultant in the humanitarian and development sector in these countries, I pursued a MSc in Sustainable Development with a specialism in Natural Resources Management. This has brought me back to the country that I first discovered in 2005 and fell in love with, the Philippines.  My MSc thesis was about the impacts of REDD+ in the Philippines for indigenous peoples’ rights and livelihoods. With this PhD, Im willing to understand more about a specific Indigenous traditional practice, shifting cultivation. I will explore whether this is fair to blame this practice for being a driver of deforestation and whether the Indigenous communities in the Philippines uplands managed to resist policies against its practice. I am also a mother of two and a music lover.

Manvi Bhalla (She/Her)

Institute for Resources, Environment, Sustainability (IRES) - Faculty of Science

Manvi is an activist-scholar with extensive intersectional community organizing experience. She is recognized as one of Canada’s ‘Top 25 Under 25’ environmentalists, ‘Top 30 Under 30’ sustainability leaders and was honoured with the ‘Youth Eco-Hero of the Year’ award in 2022. She co-founded Shake Up The Establishment, a national nonprofit dedicated to climate justice & political advocacy, alongside missINFORMED, a nonprofit focused on health promotion for women and gender-diverse peoples. She serves on numerous advisory committees including UBC’s Robson Square, FES’ The Harbour and Youth Climate Corps. Alongside her advocacy work, Manvi is a published health researcher, frequent public speaker and guest lecturer who works to centre anti-colonial approaches. During her MSc, she investigated barriers towards climate action within the public health sector. Presently, she is a PhD student at University of British Columbia with SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship funding. Her research interests include intersectional health policy making & environmental justice.

Kirthana Singh Khurana

Peter A. Allard School of Law

Kirthana is a PhD student at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia. As an Affiliated Research Scholar with the Canada Climate Law Initiative, she authored a Climate Risk and Governance Guide for directors in Canada’s technology sector (2025). She has also worked with the Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance, Yale Center for Business and the Environment on projects examining corporate net-zero commitments and ESG regulation in the United States. Kirthana brings more than 2.5 years of teaching experience as Assistant Professor and Assistant Dean (Academic Affairs) at Jindal Global Law School, and as Lecturer at Jindal Global Business School, India, where she taught courses on corporate law, securities regulation, corporate social responsibility, and corporate sustainability. At UBC, she has served as a Teaching Assistant in the Law and Society Program within the Faculty of Arts for three terms. Kirthana holds an LL.M. degree from Yale Law School, a Master of Corporate Law degree from the University of Cambridge, and B.Com (Honours) and LL.B. degrees from the University of Delhi. Her research interests include corporate law, law and technology, corporate sustainability, and climate change laws.

Aida Mohajeri

Department of Educational Studies - Faculty of Education

Aida is a PhD student in Educational Studies and a settler on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded territory of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam) people. Her dissertation examines higher education, unsustainability, and systemic inequities. She is also a Graduate Research Assistant at the Centre for Climate Justice, contributing to the projects Addressing Intersecting Crises: Climate, Housing, and Compounding Health Vulnerabilities for Senior Tenants and Living with Schizophrenia in a Changing Climate: Housing, Indoor Environmental Quality, and Health Risks. Aida holds an Ed.M. from Harvard University and a BA from Villanova University. Her professional experience spans research, policy, and education in the non-profit and government sectors.

Ndey Amie Jobe

International Forestry - Faculty of Forestry

Ndey Amie Jobe is a passionate forester, nutrition and equitable gender advocate for forestry and international governance from The Gambia. She is a registered nurse and holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Global Challenges (with a focus on biodiversity conservation and policy) from the African Leadership University in Rwanda. She is resilient, visionary, and deeply committed to creating change that bridges grassroots realities with international policy. She is the founder of EmpowerHer GM, an initiative that promotes agroecology, agroforestry, sustainable agriculture, and women’s empowerment. Through EmpowerHer, I have worked with rural women to advance climate-smart agriculture, food processing, and biodiversity conservation, training over 200 women and planting more than 200 fruit trees to combat deforestation. One of her proudest achievements has been helping reduce post-harvest losses while promoting sustainable livelihoods. Beyond her grassroots work, she served as a Charles R. Wall Young Policy Fellow with the African Wildlife Foundation and the United Nations Environment Programme. She participated in COP15 during the adoption of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework and worked on Africa’s wildlife economy. As a research intern with the ALU School of Wildlife Conservation, she contributed to the State of the Wildlife Economy in Africa report. Worked with CorpsAfrica Gambia, where she supervised 12 volunteers implementing sustainability and SDG-focused projects. At UBC, she is currently pursuing a Master of International Forestry. And is excited to deepen her expertise in forestry governance and sustainability, and nature-based solutions, integrating a gender lens into it while also continuing her work with EmpowerHer and using this knowledge to shape inclusive policies that empower communities.

Rosetta Paik 

Political Science - Faculty of Arts

Rosetta Paik is a second-year master’s student in Political Science at the University of British Columbia, specializing in Global Environmental Politics, International Relations, and Asian International Relations. Her research currently follows two main streams: international plastics governance and critical minerals. Outside of academics, Rosetta enjoys crocheting, photography, and attending both community and academic events, always eager to connect ideas (and people) across different spaces.

Dayna Rachlowski 

Institute for Resources, Environment, Sustainability (IRES) - Faculty of Sciences

Dayna is a PhD student building educational materials for chemical risk professionals to help them contribute to the decolonization of chemicals management. As a settler committed to conducting decolonial research, she is interested to share her experiences learning about damage centred versus desire-based research, data justice, and acknowledging other ways of knowing in research practices and science. Additionally, Dayna’s master’s explored law as a tool for climate crisis mitigation, with specific interest on the implementation of environmental human rights in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. She can speak to the benefits and drawbacks of environmental human rights, and Canada’s next steps in guaranteeing this new right. Dayna’s approach to teaching relies on jargon free communication, meant to foster engagement and curiosity between students of all disciplines. She intends to lead with question-based activities to break down barriers and foster confidence that goes beyond memorizing knowledge, but practicing our teachings together.

Don Shafer

Institute for Gender, Race, Sexuality and Social Justice - Faculty of Arts 

I am a broadcaster, educator, and researcher. My work bridges climate science, communication, and social justice. My MA thesis at SFU explored the science of climate change and the psychology of denial, while my recently completed PhD dissertation at UBC examined how language, power, and identity shape conversations in a polarized world. As a mentor with Al Gore’s Climate Reality Project, I focus on how we can speak across difference, whether about climate, race, gender, sexuality or social justice. My teaching spans journalism, ethics, communication, climate and social justice at UBC, BCIT, and City University, where I draw on lived experience and interdisciplinary research to help students connect complex science to human stories. At the heart of my work is a simple question: how can we keep talking—especially with those we disagree with—to foster trust, deepen understanding, and move together toward a more just and sustainable future? 

Kirthana Singh Khurana

Peter A. Allard School of Law

Kirthana is a PhD student at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia. As an Affiliated Research Scholar with the Canada Climate Law Initiative, she authored a Climate Risk and Governance Guide for directors in Canada’s technology sector (2025). She has also worked with the Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance, Yale Center for Business and the Environment on projects examining corporate net-zero commitments and ESG regulation in the United States. Kirthana brings more than 2.5 years of teaching experience as Assistant Professor and Assistant Dean (Academic Affairs) at Jindal Global Law School, and as Lecturer at Jindal Global Business School, India, where she taught courses on corporate law, securities regulation, corporate social responsibility, and corporate sustainability. At UBC, she has served as a Teaching Assistant in the Law and Society Program within the Faculty of Arts for three terms. Kirthana holds an LL.M. degree from Yale Law School, a Master of Corporate Law degree from the University of Cambridge, and B.Com (Honours) and LL.B. degrees from the University of Delhi. Her research interests include corporate law, law and technology, corporate sustainability, and climate change laws.

Dayna Rachlowski 

Institute for Resources, Environment, Sustainability (IRES) - Faculty of Sciences

Dayna is a PhD student building educational materials for chemical risk professionals to help them contribute to the decolonization of chemicals management. As a settler committed to conducting decolonial research, she is interested to share her experiences learning about damage centred versus desire-based research, data justice, and acknowledging other ways of knowing in research practices and science. Additionally, Dayna’s master’s explored law as a tool for climate crisis mitigation, with specific interest on the implementation of environmental human rights in the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. She can speak to the benefits and drawbacks of environmental human rights, and Canada’s next steps in guaranteeing this new right. Dayna’s approach to teaching relies on jargon free communication, meant to foster engagement and curiosity between students of all disciplines. She intends to lead with question-based activities to break down barriers and foster confidence that goes beyond memorizing knowledge, but practicing our teachings together.