Clark University Professor Halina Brown attended the World Resource Forum (WRF) conference held in Davos, Switzerland, October 7-9. The conference’s primary emphasis is the use of technological advances to solve some of the world’s most pressing environmental challenges.

Brown was invited to be a plenary speaker at the conference, where she addressed issues surrounding global consumption. Even though the conference does aim to address improving the efficiency of natural resources and better governance of these resources, Brown notes that consumption has been rarely addressed as a key topic.

The WRF cited Brown in its press release about the conference. “A transition to a post-consumer society requires a new notion of well-being in people’s private lives, and new types of economic activities that produce livelihoods that are not dependent on ever growing consumption.”

This past June, Brown served as the conference chair for SCORAI, the international conference of the Sustainable Consumption Research and Action Initiative, held at Clark University.

Brown is a professor of Environmental Science and Policy, and is the Program Director of the Environmental Science Undergraduate Major. She received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from New York University. Her research interests include socio-technical system innovation in sustainability transition, use of information disclosure as a regulatory instrument for sustainability, comparative international environmental policy, and management of risks from toxic substances.

Founded in 1887 in Worcester, Massachusetts, Clark University is a small, liberal arts-based research university addressing social and human imperatives on a global scale. Nationally renowned as a college that changes lives, Clark is emerging as a transformative force in higher education today. LEEP (Liberal Education and Effective Practice) is Clark’s pioneering model of education that combines a robust liberal arts curriculum with life-changing world and workplace experiences. Clark’s faculty and students work across boundaries to develop solutions to complex challenges in the natural sciences, psychology, geography, management, urban education, Holocaust and genocide studies, environmental studies, and international development and social change. The Clark educational experience embodies the University’s motto: Challenge convention. Change our world.