Dr Aideen Foley
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Overview
Overview
Biography
Environmental change requires not only technical solutions but new ways of knowing, learning and relating to place. My research examines how place-based knowledge, lived experience and learning shape responses to environmental change.
Working with island and coastal communities, I explore how people navigate uncertainty, build resilience and imagine alternative futures in changing environments. Alongside this, my work in eco-pedagogy and higher education investigates how we cultivate the knowledge and capacities needed for more sustainable futures.
My research sits at the intersection of human and environmental geography, combining expertise in spatial analysis, GIS and environmental data with qualitative and participatory approaches. This interdisciplinary perspective enables me to examine environmental change as both a biophysical process and a lived social reality.
Highlights
Read the Resilient Economies chapter I co-authored for The State of SIDS Report 2026.
Learn more about the SUNRISE project (Situated UNderstandings of Resilience in Island Societies and Environments).
Learn more about the ARISE project (Advancing Resilience and Innovation for a Sustainable Environment).
Visit my personal website here.
Watch the Breakfast with Birkbeck environment webinar series.
Honours and awards
- Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and Learning Birkbeck, University of London, May 2022
- OSUN-CLASP Fellowship Open Society University Network Center for Liberal Arts and Sciences Pedagogy, October 2022
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Research
Research
Research interests
- Climate adaptation and resilience
- Coastal and island communities
- Environmental learning and eco-pedagogy
Research overview
My research explores how place-based knowledge, lived experience and learning shape climate adaptation and environmental futures, especially in coastal and island communities. I combine spatial analysis, environmental data and participatory research to understand how environmental change is experienced, interpreted and responded to in place.
Research projects
IDEA: Initiating Dialogue on Eco-Anxiety
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Supervision and teaching
Supervision and teaching
Teaching
Teaching modules
- Climate Impacts and Resilient Communities
- Climate and Society: past, present and future
- Environment and Policy
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Publications
Publications
Article
- Foley, Aideen and Mineshima-Lowe, Dale (2025) How to collaborate on eco education – and how not to. Times Higher Education ISSN 0049-3929.
- Vittorini, S. and Sasaki, M. and AbdelMegeed, M. and Foley, Aideen (2025) I. facing resistance: the challenges of embracing new pedagogical practices. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education ISSN 0159-6306.
- AbdelMegeed, M. and Vittorini, S. and Foley, Aideen and Sasaki, M. (2025) IV. Arrested feedback loops: student experience and teachers’ evaluation. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education ISSN 0159-6306.
- Vittorini, S. and Sasaki, M. and Foley, Aideen and AbdelMegeed, M. (2025) Symposium introduction: pedagogical reflection across distance and disciplines through dialogical notebooks. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education pp. 1-5. ISSN 0159-6306.
- Sasaki, M. and Foley, Aideen and Vittorini, S. and AbdelMegeed, M. (2025) II. Engagement and education in emergencies: considering context and student choice in student participation. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education pp. 1-9. ISSN 0159-6306.
- Foley, Aideen and AbdelMegeed, M. and Sasaki, M. and Vittorini, S. (2025) III. From performance to mastery: rethinking diverse writing assessments across disciplines. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education ISSN 0159-6306.
- Foley, Aideen (2025) Serious games, student motivation, and emergent learning: autoethnographic insights from an environmental studies classroom. Transformative Dialogues: Teaching and Learning Journal 18 (4), ISSN 1918-0853.
- Foley, Aideen (2024) Running as a catalyst for environmental data inquiry: closing the distance between ‘everyday’ and ‘expert’ knowledges. Cultural Geographies ISSN 1474-4740.
- Foley, Aideen and Brinklow, L. and Corbett, J. and Kelman, I. and Klöck, C. and Moncada, S. and Mycoo, M. and Nunn, P. and Pugh, J. and Robinson, S.-A. and Tandrayen-Ragoobur, V. and Walshe, R. (2023) Understanding ‘islandness’. Annals of the American Association of Geographers ISSN 2469-4452.
- Foley, Aideen (2022) Extreme weather, climate variability and childhood: A historical analogue from the Orkney Islands (1903-1919). Island Studies Journal 17 (1), pp. 177-201. ISSN 1715-2593.
- Foley, Aideen and Moncada, S. and Mycoo, M. and Nunn, P. and Tandrayen-Ragoobur, V. and Evans, C. (2022) Small Island Developing States in a post-pandemic world: challenges and opportunities for climate action. WIREs Climate Change 13 (3), pp. e769. ISSN 1757-7780.
- Gulcebi, M. and Bartolini, E. and Lee, O. and Panagiotis Lisgaras, C. and Onat, F. and Mifsud, J. and Striano, P. and Vezzani, A. and Hildebrand, M.S. and Jimenez-Jimenez, D. and Junck, L. and Lewis-Smith, D. and Scheffer, I.E. and Thijs, R.D. and Zuberi, S.M. and Blenkinsop, S. and Fowler, H.J. and Foley, Aideen and Sisodiya, S.M. (2021) Climate change and epilepsy: insights from clinical and basic science studies. Epilepsy & Behavior 116 (107791), ISSN 1525-5050.
- Walshe, R. and Foley, Aideen (2021) Learning from the archives of island jurisdictions: why and how island history should inform disaster risk reduction and climate action. Small States & Territories 4 (2), pp. 205-230. ISSN 2616-8006.
- Blenkinsop, S. and Foley, Aideen and Schneider, N. and Willis, J. and Fowler, H.J. and Sisodiya, S.M. (2021) Carbon emission savings and short-term health care impacts from telemedicine: An evaluation in epilepsy. Epilepsia 62 (11), pp. 2732-2740. ISSN 1528-1167.
- Foley, Aideen (2021) Connecting climate models to community needs. Geography 106 (3), pp. 143-147. ISSN 0016-7487.
- Foley, Aideen and Kelman, I. (2020) Precipitation responses to ENSO and IOD in the Maldives: Implications of large-scale modes of climate variability in weather-related preparedness. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 50 (101726), ISSN 2212-4209.
- Mercure, J.-F. and Paim, M.A. and Bocquillon, P. and Lindner, S. and Salas, P. and Martinelli, P. and Berchin, I.I. and de Andrade Guerra, J.B.S.O and Derani, C. and de Albuquerque Junior, C.L. and Ribeiro, J.M.P. and Knobloch, F. and Pollitt, H. and Edwards, N.R. and Holden, P.B. and Foley, Aideen and Schaphoff, S. and Faraco, R.A. and Vinuales, J.E. (2019) System complexity and policy integration challenges: the Brazilian Energy- Water-Food Nexus. Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews 105, pp. 230-243. ISSN 1364-0321.
- Foley, Aideen (2019) Long-term trends in large-scale circulation behaviour and wind storms for North Atlantic islands: a multi-data analysis using ERA-20C and meteorological station data. Climatic Change 155, pp. 323-338. ISSN 0165-0009.
- Sisodiya, S.M. and Fowler, H.J. and Lake, I. and Nanji, R.O. and Gawel, K. and Esguerra, C.V. and Newton, C. and Foley, Aideen (2019) Climate change and epilepsy: time to take action. Epilepsia Open 4 (4), pp. 524-536. ISSN 2470-9239.
- Foley, Aideen and Kelman, I. (2018) EURO-CORDEX regional climate model simulation of precipitation on Scottish islands (1971-2000): Model performance and implications for decision-making in topographically complex regions. International Journal of Climatology 38 (2), pp. 1087-1095. ISSN 0899-8418.
- Foley, Aideen M. (2018) Climate impact assessment and ‘islandness’: Challenges and opportunities of knowledge production and decision-making for Small Island Developing States. International Journal of Climate Change Strategies and Management 10 (2), pp. 289-302. ISSN 1756-8692.
- Foley, Aideen and Holden, P.B. and Edwards, N.R. and Mercure, J.-F. and Salas, P. and Pollitt, H. and Chewpreecha, U. (2016) Climate model emulation in an integrated assessment framework: a case study for mitigation policies in the electricity sector. Earth System Dynamics 7 (1), pp. 119-132. ISSN 2190-4987.
- Foley, Aideen and Willeit, M. and Brovkin, V. and Feulner, G. and Friend, A. D. (2013) Quantifying the global carbon cycle response to volcanic stratospheric aerosol radiative forcing using Earth System Models. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 119 (1), pp. 101-111. ISSN 2169-897X.
Book section
- Stratford, E. and Baldacchino, G. and McMahon, E. and Baruah, M. and Confait, M. and Ellsmoor, J. and Farbotko, C. and Foley, Aideen and Harwood, A. and Hnaraki, M. and Pugh, J. (2023) Conversing: what does it mean to share and stress-test ideas about rethinking island methodologies?. In: Stratford, E. and Baldacchino, G. and McMahon, E. (eds.) Rethinking Island Methodologies. Rowman & Littlefield International. pp. 113-132. ISBN 9781538165195.
- Foley, Aideen (2021) States of ‘Knowing’: uncertainty, ambiguity and risk in SIDS climate change impacts. In: Moncada, S. and Briguglio, L. and Bambrick, H. and Kelman, I. and Iorns, C. and Nurse, L. (eds.) Small Island Developing States: Vulnerability and Resilience Under Climate Change. Springer. pp. 13-34. ISBN 9783030827731.
- Foley, Aideen (2020) The impact of connectivity on information channel use in Tonga during Cyclone Gita: challenges and opportunities for disaster risk reduction in island peripheries. In: Leal Filho, W. (ed.) Managing Climate Change Adaptation in the Pacific Region. Climate Change Management. Springer. pp. 255-271. ISBN 9783030405540.
Conference item
- Stromberg, M. and Elsner, Paul and Foley, Aideen Does the spatial layout of variable renewable energy capacity matter? - A quantitative study of its influence on variability characteristics of the EU-aggregated power output. Whole Systems Energy Modelling Consortium Annual Conference 2016, Cambridge, UK
Editorial
- Foley, Aideen and Moncada, S. (2021) Guest editorial introduction: critical reflections on governance and 'resilience' in small island contexts. Small States & Territories 4 (2), pp. 199-204. Islands & Small States Institute of the University of Malta. ISSN 2616-8006.
Teaching resource
- Mineshima-Lowe, Dale and Foley, Aideen and Rodrigues, Sara (2025) Sustainable futures in a changing climate: an open education resource.