Cara Augustenborg
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
April 12, 1978
Ireland
Cara Augustenborg | |
|---|---|
| Born | Cara Aisling Augustenborg April 12, 1978 Germany |
| Other names | 'The Verdant Yank' |
| Citizenship | United States Ireland |
| Alma mater | University of California, Los Angeles |
| Known for | Founded Impact Research Management |
| Spouse |
Mark Hughes (divorced) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Environmental science |
| Institutions | University College Dublin |
| Thesis | Nitrogen recycling for the sustainability of Irish agriculture (2007) |
| Doctoral advisor | Irwin Suffet |
| Website | www |
Cara Aisling Augustenborg (born 1978) is an American and Irish environmental scientist, media pundit, assistant professor at University College Dublin and a member of Ireland's Climate Change Advisory Council and President Michael D. Higgins' Council of State.[1][2]
Augustenborg was born in 1978 in Germany where her father,[3] who has Danish ancestry, was stationed as a United States Air Force fighter pilot; her mother is from County Kerry, Ireland. In her childhood she lived in Pennsylvania, Saudi Arabia and New Orleans before the family settled near the Hanford Site, a nuclear power plant in Washington state, United States, where she attended high school. She has a BSc in biochemistry from the University of Washington and an MSc in Environmental Health Sciences and Ph.D. in Environmental Science and Engineering from University of California, Los Angeles.[4] Her 2007 dissertation was titled Nitrogen recycling for the sustainability of Irish agriculture. Irwin Suffet was her committee chair.[5]
She moved to Ireland in 2003 with a Fulbright Scholarship to do research at Teagasc in County Wexford, and in 2007 moved to do post-doctoral research at Trinity College Dublin's School of Business and University College Dublin's School of Agriculture.[4] She has both Irish and American citizenship.[4]
Career
Since 2011 Augustenborg has led her own consultancy company, Impact Research Management, based in Bray.[6]
In 2014, Augustenborg was an unsuccessful candidate for the Green Party in Irish local elections.[7]
Augustenborg was chair of Friends of the Earth Europe from 2015 to 2019, and of Friends of the Earth Ireland from 2015 to 2017.[8]
Augustenborg is an assistant professor in landscape studies and environmental policy in the school of architecture, planning and environmental policy at University College Dublin, appointed in 2021.[8]
In 2019, she was appointed by Michael D. Higgins as one of the seven presidential nominees on the Irish Council of State, a body which advises the president.[9] In 2021 she was appointed by Eamon Ryan to the Climate Change Advisory Council.[7]
She writes a blog as "The Verdant Yank", which was awarded "Best Irish Current Affairs and Politics blog" in the 2016 Littlewoods Ireland Blog Awards.[10] She hosts a weekly podcast "Down To Earth" on Newstalk.[11]
She was named as "Woman of Influence" in the 2020 Irish Women's Awards.[12]
