Sam Staddon

[email protected]

ACADEMIC INTERESTS

Community-based approaches to conservation and environmental governance; development practices and practitioners; equality, gender and social inclusion and environmental justice; politics of care/care ethics; reflective and embodied learning; political ecology; qualitative research; Nepal, Northumberland, Scotland and beyond.

Sam is a feminist political ecologist committed to environmental and social justice. She is a Senior Lecturer in Environment and Developmentat the University of Edinburgh, where she engages with amazing students whilst helping to run the MSc in Environment and Development. Her research explores the role of care in nature-society relations, critical reflective learning for social justice, social relations involved in conservation and the politics of environment and development initiatives. Having trained in ecology and worked in conservation around the world for 10 years before returning to academia to complete a PhD, Sam is committed to building meaningful relationships with practitioners (hence running  the Edinburgh Environment and Development Network alongside Clare Barnes).

TEACHING & ADMINISTRATIVE ROLES

My teaching is primarily focused on the MSc in Environment and Development, which I have been involved with since 2012.

• Course Organiser: Environmental Justice & Development (PGGE11187) (PGT)
• Course Organiser: Environment & Development "In the field" (PGGE11232) (PGT) Please watch this wonderful film that was created by two of our 2025 students, Panayiotis Louca and Frantiska Vosatkova

I am or have been involved in the following administrative roles:

• Depuity Head of Geography and the Lived Environment (2023-present)
• Chair of the School of GeoScience's Research Ethics & Integrity Committee (2018-2022)

PhD SUPERVISION

• Nancy Chawawa: Why Do Smallholder Farmers Insist On Living In Flood Prone Areas? Understanding Self-Perceived Vulnerability And Dynamics Of Local Adaptation In Malawi (2018)
• Tatianna Mello Pereira da Silva: Follow The Bottle:  Pet Recycling Economy And Waste Picker Empowerment In Brazil (2020)
• Jiayen Lai: In pursuit of just forest governance: Unfolding the everyday practices of decision-making in Indonesia’s environmental impact assessment (2020)
• Amitangshu Acharya: Political ecology of small things: the curious case of domestic water purifiers in Bhuj city, Gujarat, India (2022)
• Jack Covey: From boardroom to smallholding and back again: Reckoning with social complexity in international development projects
• Omar Saif: Conserving Power: The Elusiveness of Justice in Biodiversity Conservation Practice within Nepal and Beyond (2025)
• Henry (Michael) Myers: Landscapes Of Anxiety Between The Cave And The Oil Palm Trees: Local Land Legitimation In East Kalimantan
  
• Peter Rowe: On earth as it is in Heaven: Christianity, agriculture, and agrospiritual transformation in Kenya (2025)
• Maureen Kinyanjui: The Elephant in My House: Power, Emotions and Human-Elephant Coexistence in Kenya (2025)
• Elliot Fisher: Plural Pathways: Persistence and Transformation in Madagascar's Montane Landscapes 
• Callum Leavey-Wilson: Understanding and ameliorating land use conflicts at a time of change in upland areas of Scotland
• Jack Baker: Exploring Pathways to Impact at The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
• Eric Okwir: Greening the tea? Ecolabelling, anti-climax, and the remaking of conservation people in Uganda

ACADEMIC QUALIFICATIONS

PhD Human Geography University of Edinburgh (2012)

• Thesis: ‘Keeping Track of Nature: Interdisciplinary Insights for Participatory Ecological Monitoring’

MSc Natural Resource Management (Distinction) University of Edinburgh (2006)

• Dissertation: ‘Masses of Moss: But how much and what is it worth? An investigation of the harvest and trade of wild moss in Scotland’

MSc Biodiversity & Conservation (Distinction) University of Leeds (2000)

• Dissertation: ‘Seed dispersal in the Pacific Banyan Ficus prolixa on the Cook Islands: the effectiveness of frugivores as seed dispersers and the importance of seed disperser mutualisms’

BSc (Hons) Ecology & Environmental Science (First Class) University of Lancaster (1997)

• Dissertation: ‘The potential of lichenometry in dating major flood events on Dartmoor’ 

CAREER

Senior Lecturer in Environment & Development University of Edinburgh (2022-present; 0.8FTE)

Lecturer in Environment & Development University of Edinburgh (2017-2022; 0.8FTE)

ESRC GCRF Postdoctoral Fellow University of Edinburgh (2017-2018; 0.5FTE)

Network Coordinator (PDRA) TEDDINET University of Edinburgh (2013-2016; 0.5FTE)

Teaching Fellow in Environment & Development University of Edinburgh (2012-2016; 0.2FTE)

Research Assistant (Ecology) Universities of Leeds, York (UK) & Wellington (New Zealand) (2004-2005)

Consultant Ecologist Environmental Advice Centre, UK (2003)

Research Coordinator (Forest Biodiversity Programme) Frontier, Tanzania (2001-2002)

Survey Assistant Somerset Environmental Records Centre, UK (1999)

Naturalist Guide Explorer’s Inn, Peru (1998)

PROFESSIONAL QUALIFICATIONS & MEMBERSHIP

External Examiner Masters programmes in the University of York

Higher Education Association Fellow (since 2020)

RGS-IBG Participatory Geographies Research Group Secretary (2021-2024); Ordinary Committee Member (2019-present)

Scottish Policy & Research Exchange (SPRE) Board of Trustee (Dec. 2022-present)

ESRC GCRF Peer Review Group Member (2016-present)

Technical Advisory Committee Plan Vivo (2016-2018)