Elaine Colligan

Elaine Colligan is reading for the MPhil in Political Theory at St. Cross College, supervised by Dr. Cécile Laborde. Her research focuses on developing a theory of global justice that takes climate change and correlative "climate rights" as its central focus. Her research asks what democratic and legal procedures should be available at the global level to protect and promote civil and political liberties that are increasingly threatened by the climate crisis. 

Before coming to Oxford, Elaine served as the Deputy Director of Clean Virginia, a 501c4 incorporated political action committee that fights corruption in Virginia politics. She worked on former Congressman Tom Perriello's campaign for Virginia governor in 2017, and before that organized hundreds of students and youth to talk to presidential candidates about climate change during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. She recently attended the 2018 UNFCCC climate talks in Katowice, Poland as a representative of the Women's Earth and Climate Action Network, calling for gender-just and frontline-led solutions to keep warming below 1.5 degrees Celcius.