2023 XX World Congress of the International Sociological Association

Prof Koichi Hasegawa serves as the head of the Public Sociology Program for MA students at Graduate School of Shokei Gakuin University. He is Professor-emeritus at Tohoku University. He serves as an Executive Committee Member (2018-23) of the ISA. He was a former President of ISA's RC 24 on Environment and Society (2014-18). His research interests are environmental sociology, civil society and social movements. His representative works are: Beyond Fukushima: Toward a Post-Nuclear Society. (2015), Climate Change Governance in Asia (Coeditor, Routledge, 2020), “Japanese Environmental Sociology: Focus and Issues in Three Stages of Development,” (International Sociology Reviews Vol.36, No.2, 2021).

Prof Stewart Lockie is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of the Cairns Institute at James Cook University. Prof Lockie’s research addresses environmental governance and risk in a variety of contexts including climate change, biodiversity conservation, agriculture and food security, the greening of consumption practices, and the social impacts of resource development. He was Foundation Chair of the Cairns-Port Douglas Reef Hub and leads several projects focused on climate adaptation in both protected areas and agricultural landscapes across Tropical North Queensland, working closely with First Nations, communities and management agencies. Recent publications include Failure or Reform? Market-Based Policy Instruments for Sustainable Agriculture and Resource Management, published in 2020 by Routledge, London. Professor Lockie was elected to Fellowship of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 2013.

Associate Professor Rebecca E. Olson is a Reader in Sociology at the University of Queensland. Funded by competitive national grants, her research intersects the sociologies of health and emotion. As a leading qualitative researcher, A/Prof Olson employs video-based, participatory, reflexive, post-qualitative and post-paradigmatic approaches to inform translational and transformative inquiry. Her current work focuses on medicinal cannabis in advanced cancer settings, interprofessional education and practice, and emotion management of climate anxiety. Her recent books include Towards a Sociology of Cancer Caregiving: Time to Feel (Routledge, 2015) and Emotions in Late Modernity (Routledge, 2019, co-edited).

Associate Professor Gavin Smith is an Associate Professor of Sociology and snake ecologist/conservationist at the ANU. He dedicates his time to the study and care of native Australian snakes. This entails moving dangerously venomous snakes in urban Canberra under license to new environments when they pose a hazard or require rescuing from harm. But it also involves problematising dominant representations of snakes as malevolent and out-of-place wildlife, as well as researching the spatial ecology of urban-adapted brown snakes using radio telemetry. Bringing together different bodies of knowledge, A/Prof Smith engages in diverse and extensive community education programs to re-story the serpent and improve the future conditions of life for these important, but chronically misunderstood, eco-figures.

Prof Mark C.J. Stoddart is Professor in Sociology at Memorial University, Canada, with research interests in environmental sociology, climate change, social movements, and communications and culture. He is the author of the book, Industrial Development and Eco-Tourism: Can Oil Extraction and Nature Conservation Co-Exist? (Palgrave). His work appears in a range of international journals, including Global Environmental Change, Energy Research & Social Science, Organization & Environment, Environmental Politics, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Environmental Communication, and Environmental Sociology. Prof Stoddart is committed to broad research impact through knowledge translation for policy and practice, and knowledge mobilization to the public.

Dr Audrone Telesiene is full professor of sociology and communication and head of the Center for Data Analysis and Archiving at Kaunas University of Technology. Dr Telesiene leads projects on climate change, risk communication, and sustainable development, develops the Lithuanian open research data infrastructure LiDA, and contributes to the European Social Survey and the International Social Survey Programme. Since 2019, Dr Telesiene has been elected coordinator of the research network "Environment and Society" at the European Sociological Association. Dr Telesiene has provided expert advice to national authorities, European Commission and, most recently, serves as lead author for UNEP’s 7th Global Environmental Outlook.