Catherine Richards

During her time at CSER (2020-2022), Catherine’s work focused on developing our understanding of global risks, governance mechanisms and technical solutions in relation to complex critical infrastructure systems. Her work primarily spanned environmental risks, future foods biotechnology and artificial intelligence alongside complementary digital technologies across the water, energy and food sectors as well as the transport, waste, health and space sectors. 

Currently, Catherine works as a management consultant at a top tier firm, where she leverages over a decade of experience in real assets, technology and sustainability to drive innovative strategy, finance and engineering solutions. Previously, Catherine built a climate tech startup, dappled in real estate and proptech, and worked as an engineer at a top Fortune 500 company in the energy sector and government corporation in the water sector. She completed a PhD in Engineering on climate change, food systems and society at University of Cambridge, and holds BEng(Civ) and BEng(Env) degrees from University of Newcastle, Australia. Catherine has published in the Nature portfolio, is a John Monash Scholar and was recognised in Forbes 30 Under 30 for Industry Innovation.