Chad Walker, Ph.D.

Dr. Chad Walker (he/him) is an Assistant Professor of Low-Carbon Transitions at Dalhousie University where he holds a faculty position in the School of Planning and is cross-appointed with the School for Resource and Environmental Studies. Chad is also a Research Associate in Geography at the University of Exeter (UK).

Chad is an interdisciplinary environmental social scientist with teaching and research interests around justice, equity, and public support for low-carbon transitions. Recent published research includes studying the impact of environmental justice in shaping support for wind energy, critically investigating the meaning of community energy, and using diverse methodologies to better understand reconciliation, autonomy, and pathways for improved health via Indigenous-led renewable energy development. He has been fortunate to publish in a variety of high-impact journals spanning several disciplinary boundaries, including: Energy Policy, Environment and Planning A, Environmental Policy and Planning, Energy Research and Social Science, Environmental Studies and Sciences, Environmental Reviews, The Canadian Geographer, and Social Science and Medicine.

Dr. Walker earned a PhD (Geography) from Western University (2017) and worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Queen’s University (2017-2019), the University of Exeter (2019-2021), the University of Saskatchewan (2021), and the University of Waterloo (2022). At Queen's, he worked with Dr. Heather Castleden on the CIHR-funded Achieving Strength, Health and Autonomy, through Renewable Energy Development for the Future (A SHARED Future) program.  In Saskatchewan, Chad was part of the SSHRC-funded Community Appropriate Sustainable Energy Security (CASES) initiative with Dr. Greg Poelzer and Dr. Bram Noble. During his time in the United Kingdom, Chad worked with Dr. Patrick Devine-Wright (and a larger research program called EnergyREV) studying user engagement and public participation through the development of Smart Local Energy Systems.  At Waterloo, he was awarded an AMTD Global Talent Fellowship to work with Dr. Ian Rowlands and study issues of justice and equity through the development of Smart Grid projects in Canada.

Through all of this work, Chad has used a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches, spurring a keen interest in the ways we think about and practice mixed methods.