Bio

Sara Elder is an Adjunct Professor at the Institute for Resources, Environment and Sustainability at UBC. She specializes in interdisciplinary research related to the local social and environmental impacts of global supply chain governance, with a focus on agricultural producers and workers in the global South. She currently works as a Senior Policy Advisor with the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), leading research and policy initiatives related to the impact of voluntary sustainability standards.

Sara holds a Ph.D. from UBC, where she was recognized for her work bridging private governance and development studies theory with on-the-ground outcomes for smallholder commodity producers. She has 15 years of experience in policy-relevant research and analysis, having managed global research projects, led extensive fieldwork in Rwanda and Nicaragua, and worked with communities in Bolivia, South Africa, Kenya, and Tanzania.

She is active in publishing and presenting her scholarly contributions, and is dedicated to mobilizing scientific knowledge in policy, in her current work as well as in her past positions as a Mitacs Canadian Science Policy Fellow with the BC Ministry of Agriculture and as a Technical Officer with the International Labour Organization. She is committed to effective teaching and mentoring, and recently designed a new course at UBC (SCIE 320) in socio-ecological systems research for undergraduate students to gain hands-on experience conducting interdisciplinary research.

Sara can be reached by email at sara[dot]elder[at]ubc[dot]ca

Last updated August 2022