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Prince of Wales Junior Research Fellow, Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership
Emma joined CISL in September 2020 as a Research Associate to work on reducing the environmental impact of supermarket products. She is now a Prince of Wales Junior Research Fellow. Emma researches which interventions work to reduce the environmental impact of diet. These projects span the natural and social sciences as well behavioural psychology. For this Fellowship Emma is working with Sainsbury’s on measuring the sustainability of supermarket products, considering the impacts on climate change and land use.
During her PhD (University of Cambridge, 2016-2020) Emma worked with Cambridge cafeterias to test whether placing the vegetarian options first in buffets (changing order), increasing the number of vegetarian options served (increasing availability) or altering prices can increase sales of vegetarian meals and reduce meat consumption. This work was one of the finalists in a global Solution Search for behavioural approaches to mitigating climate change. Emma was supervised by Andrew Balmford (Department of Zoology), Chris Sandbrook (Department of Geography) and Theresa Marteau (Department of Public Health and Primary Care). Her PhD was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
Emma has discussed her research in outreach events including the Cambridge Festival of Ideas, Soapbox Science, Earth Optimism and the Cambridge Science Festival. More generally, she is interested in understanding how to overcome economic, social and psychological barriers to conserving biodiversity and reaching absolute zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Emma has previously worked with several different academic institutions, NGOs and businesses including the University of Kiel (Germany), Microsoft Research (UK) and Zoological Society London (UK).
