Dr Berill Blair

Dr Berill Blair serves as a Contributor at Polar Research and Policy Initiative, with a focus on Risk and Resilience.

She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Wageningen University (The Netherlands), with the Environmental Policy Group. Berill is involved with a Netherlands-led contribution during the Year of Polar Prediction (YOPP), working with a multi-team, multidisciplinary project that aims to develop Arctic climate forecast products tailored to key social, environmental and economic needs. Previously, Berill was a researcher at the University of Alaska Fairbanks with an interest in Arctic community resilience and a background in environmental policy and natural resource management. She holds a PhD in natural resources and sustainability, a masters degree in global environmental policy and a bachelor’s degree in computer science.

She has over a decade of research experience accumulated through her work in Alaska. Her work took her to northern Alaska communities in a collaboration to test scenarios workshops as a planning tool for community sustainability; and to work with Iñupiat tribal leaders to document indigenous perceptions of risks and local control over sustainable futures. Previously, she studied the politics of oil development in Alaska focusing on the impact of regulatory institutions on indigenous self-determination.

Berill’s policy interests include climate change resilience and adaptation, risk governance, scenario planning, and Arctic geopolitics.