Sarah

Cornell

PhD

Associate professor, principal researcher

sarah.cornell@su.se

+46 8 674 77 06

@sarahlizcornell

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Profile summary

  • Biogeochemistry
  • Earth system science
  • Integrative methods
  • Global governance
  • Environmental policy

Sarah Cornell's research focuses on global sustainability. She coordinates SRC’s research and international collaborations on Earth resilience

Cornell leads a transdisciplinary team of researchers who aim to characterize the global ‘safe operating space for humanity’ in applicable ways, and is active in the growing international community of researchers advancing planetary boundaries science together with practitioners who use the framework. She also contributes to the science-policy interface work of SwedBio.

Cornell has a research background in marine and atmospheric chemistry. She obtained her PhD in 1996 from the University of East Anglia, UK, where she did postdoctoral research on the global nitrogen cycle before moving into transdisciplinary sustainability research. She worked on integrated approaches to environmental management, mainly of wetlands and coastal zones. Later she turned to issues of global environmental change and sustainability.

She has combined her own research with international science coordination for several years, helping bridge various knowledge communities in environmental change science. And she has occasionally worked as a sustainability consultant, on issues ranging from local participatory processes for community planning up to global environmental risks.

Cornell is involved in several forums where science interfaces with policy, business and wider society. She has served as a trustee and vice president of the international Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology, a learned society and membership body for all marine professionals. She co-chairs the executive committee of IHOPE (Integrated History and Future of People on Earth), a Future Earth project. She is associate editor for the journal Environmental Science & Policy, and an editorial advisory board member of the Journal of Critical Realism.

She teaches Challenges of the Anthropocene, an introduction to global change science and policy, in the SRC Master’s programme.

Throughout her career Cornell has championed university, national and EU initiatives to support women, working parents, and contract research staff working in science.

Awards and achievements:

  • Contributing author and expert reviewer for IPCC Working Group II

Supervision:
David Collste, PhD candidate
Celinda Palm, PhD candidate
Victoria Bignet, PhD candidate
Arne Tobian, PhD candidate

Staff details

ORCID: 0000-0003-4367-1296

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Personal website: www.sarahcornell.org 

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Publications by Cornell, Sarah

A sustainable and resilient circular fashion and textiles industry

Policy brief or report | 2021

Cornell, S., Häyhä, T., and Palm, C. 2021. A sustainable and resilient circular textiles and fashion industry:towards a circular economy that respects and responds to planetary priorities. A Research Report by Stockholm University’s Stockholm Resilience Centre for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and H&M Group.

This report links circular economy principles with the planetary boundaries framework, helping to set business decision making within its globally interconnected social and environmental context. It describes how the planetary boundaries can be translated to baselines of global responsibility for resource use and negative externalities. It outlines the planetary priorities for setting science based targets at the necessary le...

Earth system data cubes unravel global multivariate dynamics

Journal / article | 2020

Mahecha, M.D., Gans, F., Brandt, G., Christiansen, R., Cornell, S.E., Fomferra, N., Kraemer, G., Peters, J., Bodesheim, P., Camps-Valls, G. and Donges, J.F., 2020. Earth system data cubes unravel global multivariate dynamics.

Understanding Earth system dynamics in light of ongoing human intervention and dependency remains a major scientific challenge. The unprecedented availability of data streams describing different facets of the Earth now offers fundamentally new avenues to address this quest. However, several practical hurdles, especially the lack of data interoperability, limit the joint potential of these data streams. Today, many initiatives...

Illuminating water cycle modifications and Earth system resilience in the Anthropocene

Journal / article | 2020

Gleeson, T., Wang‐Erlandsson, L., Porkka, M., Zipper, S.C., Jaramillo, F., Gerten, D., Fetzer, I., Cornell, S.E., Piemontese, L., Gordon, L.J. and Rockström, J., 2020. Illuminating water cycle modifications and Earth System resilience in the Anthropocene. Water Resources Research, 56(4), p.e2019WR024957

Fresh water—the bloodstream of the biosphere—is at the center of the planetary drama of the Anthropocene. Water fluxes and stores regulate the Earth's climate and are essential for thriving aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, as well as water, food, and energy security. But the water cycle is also being modified by humans at an unprecedented scale and rate. A holistic understanding of freshwater's role for Earth system resilie...

Bending the curve of terrestrial biodiversity needs an integrated strategy

Journal / article | 2020

Leclère, D., Obersteiner, M., Barrett, M., Butchart, S.H., Chaudhary, A., De Palma, A., DeClerck, F.A. et.al. 2020. Bending the curve of terrestrial biodiversity needs an integrated strategy. Nature, 585(7826), pp.551-556.

Increased efforts are required to prevent further losses to terrestrial biodiversity and the ecosystem services that it provides. Ambitious targets have been proposed, such as reversing the declining trends in biodiversity; however, just feeding the growing human population will make this a challenge. Here we use an ensemble of land-use and biodiversity models to assess whether—and how—humanity can reverse the declines in ter...