Rate My Professor Michele Barnes

Associate Professor Michele Barnes is a leading researcher in social-ecological systems at the University of Sydney's School of Project Management in the Faculty of Engineering, a position she assumed in 2024. She directs the Social Dynamics and Environmental Change Lab and co-leads the Climate Disaster and Adaptation theme within the Sydney Environment Institute. Barnes completed her PhD in 2015 at the University of Hawaii in an interdisciplinary program blending social network science, sociology, economics, and environmental science. Her postdoctoral work included a U.S. National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship from 2015 to 2018, conducted as a visiting fellow at James Cook University's ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, where she developed integrative social-ecological network modeling frameworks. Subsequently, she secured an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) from 2019 to 2022, valued at AUD 370,000, to explore how social networks and power dynamics influence adaptive and transformative responses to climate change. Prior to Sydney, she held positions at James Cook University, including as an adjunct associate professor.

Barnes' research specializations encompass the social-ecological dynamics shaping community and institutional responses to climate risks, including social networks, structural foundations of resilience, power relations, and feedbacks between social and ecological systems. Her work spans coral reefs, fisheries, agriculture, and disaster preparedness across regions like the Indo-Pacific, East Africa, and South America. Highly influential publications include 'Coral reefs in the Anthropocene' (2017), 'Building adaptive capacity to climate change in tropical coastal communities' (2018), 'Social Dimensions of Resilience in Social-Ecological Systems' (2019), 'Improving network approaches to the study of complex social–ecological interdependencies' (2019), 'Social determinants of adaptive and transformative responses to climate change' (2020), and 'The social structural foundations of adaptation and transformation in social–ecological systems' (2017). These papers, published in premier journals such as Nature, Nature Climate Change, and Nature Sustainability, demonstrate her substantial impact on the field. Barnes has earned the Australian Network for Social Network Analysis (ANSNA) Garry Robins Early Career Research Award in 2025 and the Paul Bourke Award in 2021. Current leadership roles include Associate Head (Research Education) in the School of Project Management (2024–2025), Core Member of the Faculty of Engineering Level D Promotions Committee (2025), and past ANSNA President (2023). She contributes to editorial boards and global initiatives, such as the Resilience Science Must-Knows report (2025).