Elin Kelsey conducts research into the emotional responses of children, environmental educators and conservation biologists to the culture of "hopelessness" that permeates environmental issues. She received her PhD in Science Communication/International Environmental Policy from Kings College London. She consults and collaborates on academic, public engagement, and writing projects with a wide variety of institutions including the Woods Institute for the Environment at Stanford University in the USA; the Zoological Society of London; the Monterey Bay Aquarium; Royal Roads University in Canada, and The Cairns Institute at James Cook University in Australia. At the Rachel Carson Center, Elin will be working on a popular book that is part of a multi-year collaboration of the Zoological Society of London, the Smithsonian Institution, other ISE partners, and a popular press entitled Circumnavigating Hope. The project draws on an array of disciplines and creative approaches to shift the dominant environmental narrative beyond doom and gloom.
RCC Research Project: Circumnavigating Hope: A Journey to Find and Share Successful Environmental Outcomes
Film Interview with Elin Kelsey
Selected publications:
- Kool, Richard, and Elin Kelsey. "Dealing with Despair: The Psychological Implications of Environmental Issues." Paper presented at the Third World Environmental Education Congress, Turin, Italy, October 2005.
- Ecologists Should Learn to Look on the Bright Side. New Scientist, January 2012.
- Kelsey, Elin, and Carly Armstrong. "Finding Hope in a World of Environmental Catastrophe." In Learning for Sustainability in Times of Accelerating Change, edited by Arjen E.J. Wals and Peter Blaze Corcoran, 187–200, Wageningen, The Netherlands: Wageningen Academic Publishers, 2012.