Susie Moloney

Dr Susie Moloney is an Associate Professor in Sustainability and Urban Planning in the School of Global Urban and Social Studies and a member of the Centre for Urban Research (CUR), RMIT University. Her research focuses on climate change adaptation, social equity and justice, urban sustainability and land-use planning and the implications for policy and governance particularly at the local and regional scale. She has worked for both the public, private and not-for-profit sectors in the urban planning, sustainability and social justice domains. Between 2021-2023 she was seconded to establish the Centre for Just Places at Jesuit Social Services. As the Executive Director she led a research, policy and practice team working at the intersection of social justice, equity and well-being and climate change. 

Over the last fifteen years she has worked on a range of applied climate change research projects with local and state government and community sector organisations. She was a lead researcher working with the Victorian government to co-designing their Place-based Adaptation Guidance Briefs and the Guidance Brief for Local Governments legislative roles and responsibilities under climate change. She is one of the co-founders of The Climate Change Exchange a not-for-profit initiative, committed to the goals of justice, equity and ecological sustainability in working towards a climate resilience future.

Susie partnered for a number of years with the Western Alliance for Greenhouse Action (WAGA) on the 'How Well Are We Adapting? project which involved co-designing a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for Climate Change Adaptation for local governments (later becoming part of the Victorian Climate Resilient Councils initiatives https://www.vcrc.org.au). Susie was a co-investigator on a 4 year international comparative network supported by the European Science Research Council (ESRC) titled 'Low Carbon Urban Transitions: a Comparative International Network' (http://community.dur.ac.uk/incut/). The network included researchers from the UK, China, India, South Africa and the US. Susie co-edited the 2018 book 'Local Action on Climate Change: Pathways and Opportunities and Constraints', Routledge , UK , along with Professor Hartmut Funfgeld (Freiburg University) and Prof Mikael Granberg (Karlstad University). She has also co-authored a book about urban planning and sustainability in Melbourne with Professor's Robin Goodman and Michael Buxton 'Planning Melbourne: Lessons for a Sustainable City' published by CSIRO in 2016.

Industry experience
Research/Consulting areas:
Urban planning and sustainability
Climate change adaptation planning and policy
Social and ecological justice projects
Low carbon transitions