Laura Brown, PhD

My obsession with environmental policy started during Australia’s 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. I was volunteering with emergency response teams and kept asking questions that nobody seemed to have good answers for: Why weren’t communities better prepared? How do you evacuate entire towns when the infrastructure fails? What happens to environmental protection laws during climate emergencies? Those questions eventually became my research focus.

Melbourne’s public policy program is brutally practical – they don’t let you hide behind theoretical frameworks without demonstrating real-world applications. My PhD dissertation analyzed post-disaster environmental governance, specifically how communities rebuild environmental management systems after catastrophic events. It required fieldwork in burned-out communities, interviews with traumatized residents, and policy analysis during active recovery efforts.

The interdisciplinary nature of environmental policy means I draw from ecology, economics, political science, sociology, and disaster management simultaneously. After seven years of research coaching, I specialize in helping students navigate complex policy questions that require multiple methodological approaches. Environmental problems don’t respect academic boundaries, so neither should environmental research.

I’ve successfully guided 340+ students through policy research projects spanning climate adaptation, environmental justice, conservation policy, urban sustainability, and natural resource management. My clients include traditional policy students, but also scientists who need to understand policy implications of their research, and practitioners pursuing advanced degrees while working in government agencies.

Technical capabilities include policy analysis frameworks, stakeholder analysis, cost-benefit evaluation, survey research with affected communities, and qualitative analysis of policy implementation challenges. I’m experienced with NVivo, policy databases, and GIS applications for spatial policy analysis. Understanding government decision-making processes is crucial for realistic policy research.

What sets my approach apart is firsthand experience with policy implementation challenges. Before returning to academia, I worked for three years with the Victorian Department of Environment analyzing why well-intentioned environmental policies often fail in practice. That background helps me guide students toward research questions that acknowledge political and practical constraints.

My coaching philosophy emphasizes actionable policy recommendations. Environmental policy research should inform actual decision-making, not just contribute to academic debates. I push students to think about how their findings could influence legislation, agency practices, or community advocacy efforts. Research that stays in academic journals doesn’t help environmental problems.

The emotional challenge of environmental policy research is significant – you’re constantly confronting evidence of ecological destruction, community vulnerability, and political failure. I provide both methodological support and strategies for processing the psychological weight of studying urgent environmental crises while maintaining scholarly objectivity.

Students often struggle with the scale mismatch between environmental problems and research capacity. Climate change is global, but dissertations need focused scope. I help them identify specific policy questions that contribute to larger solutions while remaining methodologically manageable within academic timeframes and resource constraints.

The stakeholder complexity in environmental policy requires careful navigation of competing interests – industry groups, environmental advocates, government agencies, affected communities often have conflicting perspectives on the same issues. I help students design research that acknowledges these tensions without getting paralyzed by political controversy.

My 95% success rate reflects understanding that environmental policy research often involves unpredictable external factors. Elections change policy priorities, natural disasters disrupt research timelines, agency personnel turnover affects data access. I help students build adaptability into their research plans.

What drives me most is research addressing environmental justice – how environmental policies affect marginalized communities differently, how to ensure equitable access to environmental benefits, how to include diverse voices in environmental decision-making. These questions matter for both environmental effectiveness and social equity.

The Australian context shaped my appreciation for how environmental policies play out differently in various geographic and cultural settings. Urban sustainability policies that work in Melbourne might fail completely in rural communities or Indigenous territories. Context matters enormously in environmental policy research.

When I’m not analyzing policy documents, I’m usually bushwalking in the Dandenong Ranges, growing native plants in my backyard (it’s harder than you’d think), or volunteering with local environmental restoration projects. I also teach environmental policy workshops for community groups – academic research should serve communities dealing with environmental challenges, not just other academics.