Esther Carmen is a PhD student of community resilience and social capital at University of Dundee, UK. She has been an interdisciplinary scientific researcher with seven years experience examining socio-political dimensions of environmental challenges across multiple scales. This includes experience working in transdisciplinary teams coordinating a complex action-research project to build community resilience in the context of climate change, engaging with and exchanging knowledge with diverse groups of stakeholders and leading research within EU projects relating to biodiversity science-policy-practice interfaces. Prior to this nine years experience working in wetland biodiversity and fisheries management in the UK and two years working in Cambodia focusing on knowledge exchange and capacity building for community natural resource management.