Caitlin McElroy

Dr Caitlin McElroy is a Departmental Research lecturer in Enterprise and the Environment at the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment (SSEE) and the School of Geography and the Environment. Her research addresses improving the sustainability and development of resource driven economies, advancing the circular economy of mineral resources, and the complicated relationships between finance, equality, and environmental services (cooling and water) in developed and developing economies.

Caitlin is an economic geographer and her research has engaged with institutional theory, financial geography, science and technology studies, and environmental justice. Current research includes leading on Circular Resourcing, a related circular economy focused workstream as part of the Future of Cooling programme, and ongoing research on Sharing Resource Prosperity. She is also involved in partnerships to create tools to assist corporations, governments, and investors in the management of their environmental and social risks and opportunities such as with DAMSAT, a satellite-based dam monitoring project funded by the UK Space Agency. Support for her research has also come from the Oxford Martin School, The John Fell Fund, and as part of UpGro (NERC/ESRC/DFID).

Caitlin established and is the director of the Smith School's executive education programme. Started in 2014, the programme has run bespoke courses for a range of organisations such as environmental judges selected by the Supreme People's Court of the People's Republic of China, institutional investors, and energy majors. It also runs a range of open-enrolment courses across the research areas of the SSEE.

Caitlin holds a BA (with Honours) from the University of Pennsylvania in History and Environmental Studies, an MSc in Nature, Society and Environmental Policy (with Distinction) and a DPhil in economic geography (Clarendon Scholar), both from the University of Oxford.

Teaching

Caitlin is a tutor in human geography at St Peter's college and lectures on Economic Geography as part of the undergraduate courses Human Geography (1st years), and Space, Place, Society (2nd years). She co-leads an MSc elective on the Circular Economy with Dr Micol Chiesa.

Caitlin also contributes teaching on various master's courses within the School of Geography and the Environment. Her subjects have included economic geography, extractive industries and development, corporate environmental management, and fieldwork methods. She also supervises DPhil students, MSc dissertations, and serves as an assessor in both programs.

Previously, Caitlin has also co-taught an MSc elective on the Politics of Oil and Gas with Dr Kärg Kama. She also served as the SSEE project manager for curriculum development for the Saïd Business School's GOTO programme in Water Management and Markets and has been the acting director of the MSc in Nature, Society, and Environmental Policy.