Dr Erin Bohensky

Dr. Erin Bohensky is a sustainability scientist with a career focus on participatory and ethical futures. Drawing on interdisciplinary theories of systems science, governance and futures studies, her work seeks to understand and support transitions to more sustainable futures even as emergency and crisis situations escalate. Her work for two decades on knowledge co-production and participatory planning processes has assisted governments, urban and regional planners, and communities in Australia, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and Africa to anticipate, respond and adapt to complex social-ecological challenges. This work─as well as her own experience as a ‘futurist parent’─has fueled a passion to redress the ironic under-representation of young people in decision-making about the future, and she works with a Townsville primary school through the STEM Professionals in Schools Program to introduce interactive ‘futures thinking’ to students.

Erin’s involvement with the United Nations’ Millennium Ecosystem Assessment beginning in 2002 catalyzed her interest in working across multiple scales and epistemologies, or ways of knowing. Joining CSIRO in 2006, she has led a diverse portfolio of work, delivering to a wide range of clients, but sharing a common thread: to blend systems science and principles of engagement, acknowledging the crucial roles of social inclusion, equity and legitimacy, among others in achieving sustainable and just outcomes. This work has included multi-scale participatory adaptation planning in the Torres Strait (Australian Department of Environment); developing rigorous, social science-based approaches to community engagement for sterile insect technology (Verily Life Sciences); harmonizing disaster resilience approaches among Queensland state agencies (Queensland Reconstruction Authority); understanding influences of media narratives on the management of water quality in the Great Barrier Reef (Queensland Department of Environment) and designing public deliberation processes for coral reef restoration and adaptation (Great Barrier Reef Foundation).

Erin’s publications include research articles in Nature Climate Change, Global Environmental Change, Ecology and Society, Conservation Biology and Climate Risk Management and a review for Nature of the documentary “Aftermath: the Second Flood.” She has also written and recorded a guest blog for ABC North Queensland entitled “How to Talk to A Six-Year-Old about Trump.”