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Wendy Conway-Lamb

Wendy Conway-Lamb

Postdoctoral research fellow

About

Dr Wendy Conway-Lamb is a researcher and practitioner with around twenty years of experience working on climate change, international development, and inclusive decision-making. Her areas of expertise include climate adaptation and resilience; climate and energy justice; deliberative democracy; global climate governance; community engagement; and international development.


Wendy recently completed her PhD on Democratic Frontiers in Climate Governance at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy, University of Canberra. In her PhD thesis, she examined the challenges of pursuing democratic approaches to climate change decision-making in three critical and overlapping areas: global climate governance; adaptation to climate impacts in the Global South; and climate cooperation in authoritarian contexts. With empirical case studies ranging from adaptation in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta, to the world’s first Global Citizens’ Assembly on climate change, Wendy’s fundamental research interest is in exploring how those most directly affected by climate change – and measures to address it – can be meaningfully included in climate governance at all scales. 


Dr Wendy Conway-Lamb is currently working as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Canberra, based at the Centre for Environmental Governance and the Centre for Deliberative Democracy, where she is working on the ARC-funded Discovery project, Just Transmission: Advancing Coherence in Australia’s Electricity Policy. This project is examining – from an energy justice perspective – how regional communities in Victoria and New South Wales are being affected by, and engaged in, plans to build new high-voltage transmission lines to deliver electricity from renewable power stations across the country as part of Australia’s energy transition.  

Beyond academia, Wendy has worked for a variety of organisations, including the Australian Government, NGOs, think tanks, and the United Nations. Her skills encompass research and analysis; policy and technical advice; program design and evaluation; team leadership; public diplomacy; teaching and facilitation. She has experience working across the Indo-Pacific region, with a particular focus on Vietnam and Southeast Asia.


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University of Canberra Researcher Profile 

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Published journal articles

 

  • Conway-Lamb, Wendy, Pierrick Chalaye, Kari De Pryck, Stephen Elstub, Emerson M. Sanchez, and Novieta H. Sari (2025). Analysing the Global Assembly’s Influence: The Challenges of Linking to the Deliberative System of Global Climate Governance. Environmental Science & Policy 171 (104124): 1–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104124. 

 

  • De Pryck, Kari, Pierrick Chalaye, Wendy Conway-Lamb, Stephen Elstub, Emerson M. Sanchez, and Novieta H. Sari (2025). The Global Climate Assembly: A New Global Deliberative Space? In Climate Assemblies: New Civic Institutions for a Climate-Changed World, edited by Oliver Escobar and Stephen Elstub. De Gruyter. https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/9783111328393-015/html. 

 


Other publications


Conference papers

  • Conway-Lamb, Wendy (2024) ‘What does adaptation justice mean to people affected by climate impacts?’ Human Geographies of Climate Change Adaptation conference, Bergen, May 2024 


  • Conway-Lamb, Wendy & Pickering, Jonathan (2022) ‘The case for democratizing global adaptation governance’, Earth System Governance conference, Toronto, Oct 2022 


  • Conway-Lamb, Wendy (2018), ‘Beyond the vertical hierarchy paradigm: a deliberative systems approach to adaptation governance’, IPSA World Congress of Political Science, Brisbane, July 2018 


  • Conway-Lamb, Wendy (2018), ‘Inclusive multi-level adaptation governance: a deliberative systems approach’, Adaptation Futures, Cape Town, June 2018 


Research Projects


Teaching experience

  • International Climate Change Policy and Economics, Masters level course, Australian National University (co-convenor, tutor, guest lecturer)  


  • Domestic Climate Change Policy and Economics, Masters level course, Australian National University (tutor, guest lecturer) 


Affiliations

  • Research fellow, Earth System Governance Network  


  • Research Associate, Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience Research Network 

The Centre for Deliberative Democracy acknowledges the Ngunnawal people, traditional custodians of the lands where Bruce campus is situated. We wish to acknowledge and respect their continuing culture and the contribution they make to the life of Canberra and the region. We also acknowledge all other First Nations Peoples on whose lands we gather.

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