Dr Marie Claire Brisbois is an interdisciplinary engaged scholar with a background across environmental science, biological engineering and environmental governance. Marie Claire’s work examines questions of power, politics and influence in energy, water and climate governance contexts. She also work on broader issues of social change, public participation and collaboration in low carbon transitions. In addition to her work on EDRC, Marie Claire is Lecturer in Environmental Governance at UCL.
She was also Co-Director of the Sussex Energy Group and the Sussex lead on the H2020 CINTRAN (Carbon Intensive Regions in Transition – Unravelling the Challenges of Structural Change) project examining the coping strategies of people experiencing direct impacts of coal phase outs in Europe, and how elite power plays out in these contexts (2020-2024). Through work on the JPI Solstice ROLES (Responsive Organising for Low Emission Societies) project, Marie Claire is examining issues of inclusion in smart, local energy systems (2020-2023).
Other projects have focused on relational approaches to home energy retrofit policy, local Green New Deals, and the potential of local energy ownership to disrupt political power patterns in centralised energy sectors in advanced economies. Marie Claire writes on participatory and collaborative environmental governance, and the military and security implications of energy transitions.
Marie Claire has worked as a civil servant through a Canadian Science Policy Fellowship at Natural Resources Canada, and in environmental advocacy as an Education Coordinator with the Sierra Club of Canada. Through the Sussex Energy Group, she regularly engages with policy and political actors, and with the media.