Dr Sarah Kneebone manages BehaviourWorks Australia's Education and Training portfolio, leading the professional development and accredited education program for the organisation. She works with partners and clients across the public sector and private enterprise to build skills, capability and confidence in applying behavioural science tools and perspectives to policy and project development. Sarah is passionate about creating accessible, engaging and practical training programs to provide opportunities to anyone wanting to build their behaviour change expertise, using online training programs, applied bespoke courses and impactful behaviour change 'bootcamps'. Sarah is the Unit Coordinator for the recognised masters unit, ENS5520, Understanding Human Behaviour to Influence Change, part of the Monash University’s Master of Environmental Sustainability course and teaches into the accredited online course, Applying Behavioural Science to Create Change, the new online program, Designing Interventions and Measuring Change and the open online course produced in partnership with SDG Academy, Changing Behaviour for Sustainable Development. She recently ran the extensive professional development program for BWA’s award-winning Graduate Research Industry Partnership doctoral program.

 

Sarah is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy and obtained her doctorate from Monash University through the innovative multidisciplinary CRC for Water Sensitive Cities program. Her thesis, ‘Catalysing water-saving behaviours in Australian urban households’, focused on developing a tool to aid identification and prioritisation of water sensitive behaviours; this tool has since been used to support behaviour selection in several significant projects. Sarah's research interests focus on the utilisation of behavioural science tools for environmental protection and biodiversity conservation, the impacts of behavioural science training for organisations and individuals, and how we can maximise the effectiveness of our teaching using behavioural science techniques.

 

Sarah is a qualified science teacher (Cambridge University) and holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Sustainable Development (Imperial College & School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London), and Master’s degree in Environmental Conservation (University College London). Prior to arriving in Australia, Sarah was Director of Education and Public Engagement at Oman Botanic Garden, where she established strategic interpretation and marketing programs and built an education centre for schools focused on biodiversity conservation and sustainability. Sarah previously worked in environmental education and interpretation within the botanic garden and zoo sector, designing and leading training events and workshops on education best practice in Honduras, the Philippines, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Canada, Russia, Thailand, USA, UK, South Africa, China, Spain and Germany.