Karen Malone

Karen Malone is Professor of Environmental Philosophy, Sustainability, and Nature Studies in the School of Social Sciences, Media, Film and Education at Swinburne University of Technology, Australia. She previously held a cross-faculty professorial role in Sustainability at Western Sydney University. She is a globally recognized scholar, ranked in Stanford University’s Top 2% of Most Cited Scientists (2022) in geography, education, and social sciences.

• Doctor of Philosophy, Deakin University (1993–1996)
• BEd (Honours), Edith Cowan University (1991–1992)
• BEd (Primary), Monash University (1989–1991)
• Postdoctorate, United Nations/Deakin University, Norway (1997–1999)

Professor Malone's research lies at the intersection of environmental philosophy, human geography, environmental humanities, and childhood studies. She employs critical feminist posthuman and vital materialist theories to dismantle anthropocentric binaries and foster alliances between sciences, social sciences, arts, and Indigenous knowledge systems. Her work emphasizes transdisciplinary approaches, integrating ecology, sustainability, sociology, geography, and creative arts. Key research areas include urban childhood ecologies, plant ontologies, climate change education, and postqualitative inquiry.

Her recent publications reflect a strong trend toward more-than-human pedagogies, multispecies justice, and decolonial environmental ethics. Works such as Planty Childhoods and Walking-with Glacier demonstrate innovative methodologies like sympoiesis, witnessing, and walking-with, emphasizing relationality, affect, and embodied engagement with ecological crises. Her scholarship increasingly integrates Indigenous philosophies and East-West theoretical entanglements, particularly in rethinking sustainability education in the Anthropocene.

• Top 2% Most Cited Scientist in the World (Stanford University, 2022)
• ACGR Excellence in Graduate Research Supervision – National Special Commendation (2022)
• Kazakh Presidential Award for Service to Country (2015)
• Australian Planning Institute Presidential Award (2013)
• Multiple Vice Chancellors Teaching Awards (2002, 2005, 2006)
• Finalist, National Eureka Allen Strom Award (1999)

Professor Malone has supervised 20 HDR completions and currently mentors 6 doctoral students. She has secured over $2.6 million in research funding, including three ARC grants. Notable projects include Curating Museum Collections for Climate Change Mitigation and Citizens with Rats (Academy of Finland). She is actively involved in UNICEF’s Child-Friendly Cities initiative and has conducted participatory research with children across Africa, Asia, and South America. She also leads the global project Children in the Anthropocene and co-directs Young Environmental Sustainability Education in the Anthropocene at Swinburne.

She is co-editor of Children Geographies, series editor of Children: Global Posthumanist Perspectives, and associate editor of the Routledge Book Series on Postqualitative, New Materialist and Critical Posthumanist Research. She is an affiliate researcher at the National Centre for Reconciliation Practice and contributes to global sustainability goals (SDGs 4, 11, 13, 15).