Chad Walker, Ph.D.

My name is Dr. Chad Walker (he/him) and I'm an Assistant Professor in Climate Change Planning at Dalhousie University. Here, I hold a faculty position in the School of Planning and am cross-appointed with the School for Resource and Environmental Studies. I am also a Research Associate in Geography at the University of Exeter (UK).

Professionally, I would describe myself as 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. I've 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.

In terms of my academic background, I 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 I 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, I was part of the SSHRC-funded Community Appropriate Sustainable Energy Security (CASES) initiative with Dr. Greg Poelzer and Dr. Bram Noble. During my time in the United Kingdom, I 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, I 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, I have used a combination of qualitative and quantitative approaches, spurring a keen interest in the ways we think about and practice mixed methods.