Professor Julia Steinberger researches Ecological Economics at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland. After a PhD in experimental physics, Professor Steinberger moved to the interdisciplinary areas of industrial ecology and ecological economics, first as a postdoc at the universities of Lausanne and Zurich, then in Vienna at the Institute of Social Ecology, and subsequently as a professor at the University of Leeds in the UK. Her research examines the connections between resource use (energy and materials, greenhouse gas emissions) and societal performance (economic activity and human wellbeing).
From 2017 to 2022, she was the recipient of a Leverhulme Research Leadership Award for her research project ‘Living Well Within Limits’, investigating how universal human well-being might be achieved within planetary boundaries. Since 2023, she co-leads the EU ERC Synergy grant “REAL- A Post-Growth Deal” on post-growth societies. She is Lead Author for the IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report with Working Group 3.