Sean Kennedy has over ten years of climate change planning and policy experience across public, private, and nonprofit sectors, including positions at the Australian Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency in Canberra, Australia, the World Agroforestry Centre in Bogor, Indonesia, and the Center for Sustainable Communities at UCLA. Before joining the SGC, Sean was an Assistant Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. His research and teaching spanned the areas of international environmental planning, energy governance, and climate change planning, with an emphasis on equity impacts of energy and climate change policy in California and Southeast Asia. As a postdoctoral scholar, Sean contributed technical expertise and supported stakeholder engagement as part of the Los Angeles County Sustainability Plan. His research has appeared in numerous academic journals and mainstream outlets, including Energy Research and Social Science, Popular Science, The Conversation, and the conservation site Mongabay. Sean has Ph.D. in Urban Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles, a Master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles, a Graduate Diploma in Environmental and Resource Economics from the Australian National University, and a Bachelor’s degree in Business from Southern Cross University.

Term: 2023 - 2025