Sarah West

Sarah is a Research Associate at the Stockholm Environment Institute at York as well as teaching (50% time) in the Environment Dept. She has been mainly working on a large citizen science project called OPAL (Open Air Laboratories), which aims to encourage members of the public to engage with their local environment, through participation in surveys of soil, air and water quality, and biodiversity surveys of back-yards, gardens, playing fields and streets. Sarah is particularly interested in the benefits people may gain from participating in such projects, including environmental attitude and behaviour change, and how these benefits can be measured.

She also works on the Living at Derwenthorpe project led by the Centre for Housing Policy at the University of York, evaluating the success of this new "sustainable community" of houses in York, by using SEI York's community footprint calculator Reap Petite (www.reap-petite.com). Sarah also enjoys working with the Centre for Lifelong Learning (http://www.york.ac.uk/lifelonglearning/) to evaluate some of their community education projects.

Sarah is currently studying for a PhD in the evaluation of environmental education at the Environment Department at the University of York. Before that she completed an MSc in Biodiversity and Conservation at the University of Leeds, but started off as a Geographer, gaining a BA Hons from the University of Oxford (St Peter's College) in 2005.