2022
Education & Thought Leadership
Dr. Elena Bennett headshot
Clean16 Award Logo

Dr. Elena Bennett

Professor, McGill University

Dedicated to expanding knowledge – and love – of Canada’s landscapes to as many people as possible, Elena founded ResNet, a pan-Canadian research network involving more than 150 multidisciplinary scholars and designed to improve the way Canada monitors and manages its ecosystem services.
Elena’s publications have been cited by thousands of other researchers. Her “knowledge-to-action” approach to sustainable management, which includes stakeholders in the process of scientific discovery, helps ensure that work serves on-the-ground decisions.
Her work on “Seeds of Good Anthropocenes” helps to spur fundamental change through stories of people taking action in the margins to transform the world around them for the better, and inspired a World Economic Forum (Davos) presentation and a TEDxCERN talk that has been viewed over 30,000 times.
Elena brings her devotion a step further by supervising Ph.D. candidates, including the 2018 Clean50 Emerging Leader Marianne Falardeau, fostering the next generation of environmental leadership in Canada.