Dr Mary Sanford

Personal statement:

My research interests lie at the intersection of social science, data science, and the political economy of climate change. I use qualitative and quantitative methods to analyse complex issues related to the advancement of climate change communication, activism, and policy. In 2026, I began a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship titled ‘Agents of the Status Quo: How elite influencers impact the ecological transition’ which endeavours to conceptualise and measure the role of fashion and lifestyle social media influencers on climate-relevant lifestyle choices and political attitudes.

Collaboration opportunities:

I am open to any collaborations seeking to drive impact on the social, political, and communications side of climate action. I have consulted before with organisations such as the OECD on various projects, and with charities on campaign evaluations. I am open to media work that helps communicate climate issues, particularly around justice and equity, to a broader audience.

Publications:

Controversy around climate change reports: a case study of Twitter responses to the 2019 IPCC report on land. Climatic Change. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-021-03182-1

Emotional framing in online environmental activism: Pairing a Twitter study with an offline experiment. Frontiers in Psychology. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1099331/full

Climate media amidst technopolitical change: challenges, transformations, and new directions for research. Climatic Change. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-025-03936-1

Veganuary and the vegan sausage (t)rolls: conflict and commercial engagement in online climate-diet discourse. Nature Humanities and Social Science Communication. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-022-01464-2

Climate policy feasibility across Europe relies on the conditional middle. Nature Climate Change. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-026-02562-8

Policlim: A Dataset of Climate Change Discourse in the Political Manifestos of Forty-Five Countries from 1990 to 2022. British Journal of Political Science. https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/6EDB6B14410810A9E57A45F68BB09B47/S0007123425100719a.pdf/div-class-title-span-class-monospace-policlim-span-a-dataset-of-climate-change-discourse-in-the-political-manifestos-of-forty-five-countries-from-1990-to-2022-div.pdf

How news media, climate anxiety, and trust shape pro-climate behaviour across eight countries. International Journal of Press/Politics. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/19401612251377854

Beliefs about EU 2030 climate commitments across public, expert, and policy audiences. Environmental Research Letters. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ae491b/meta

Divergences between mainstream and social media discourses after COP26, and why they matter. Oxford Open Climate Change. https://academic.oup.com/oocc/article/4/1/kgae006/7687231