Sustainability Clinic Expert Advisor spotlight: Georgia Ramsay

Following a brilliant win for the Sustainability Clinic, receiving a Green Gown Award for student engagement earlier this month, we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to share an insight into the staff involved in the Sustainability Clinic. 

Our Sustainability Clinic Expert Advisors have been supporting our student groups throughout this semester, providing subject-specific expertise and general assistance to all staff and students engaged in the module.

One of our expert advisors is Georgia Ramsay from the Department of Education, who has shared a bit about what she does at the University, and why she decided to take on this role for the Clinic. Read her story below.

Tell us a bit about your current role at the University.

In addition to my expert advisor role, my substantive role is the Curriculum Area Leader for the Geography PGCE where I am responsible for training the teachers of tomorrow, based in the Department of Education.

Tell us about your background and area of expertise.

My background is in geography education, where I have 23 years experience of teaching in secondary schools and more recently have moved into the role as a teacher educator/trainer. Sustainability has become an increasingly important aspect of education and through my work I have developed a considerable amount of links with schools and local communities around York.

What aspect of your Expert Advisor role are you excited about?

An aspect of this role that I am most excited about is supporting students to apply their learning to a real-life situation, where they can see that actions are having real impact at a variety of scales. The journey from taking ideas and concepts and turning them into reality is something that really motivates me.

And finally, what do you like to do outside of work?

I live locally, just outside of York and am married with two young children. In addition to my passions for education and sustainability, I am a (very) amateur triathlete, I love most types of music (I play the violin) and I also enjoy spending some quiet time on my allotment.

A huge thanks to Georgia for sharing more about her involvement in the Sustainability Clinic. We’re looking forward to sharing more spotlight stories with you soon.

About the Sustainability Clinic

The Sustainability Clinic forms part of York’s suite of interdisciplinary modules and is available to students from across the University. To date, 300 students and 51 partner organisations have participated in Clinic projects, which brings together students and the local community to tackle pressing sustainability issues. Working in teams, students are given a project brief that has been co-produced with a community organisation, charity, SME or local government, focusing on a sustainability challenge faced by the organisation. All projects are designed to develop students’ employability skills while adding capacity to local organisations to tackle the challenges of environmental sustainability.

Initially piloted as voluntary activity, from 2023/24, the Sustainability Clinic is now available as an interdisciplinary undergraduate and postgraduate elective module. The Sustainability Clinic has been developed in partnership by Careers and Placements, the Baroness Hale Law Clinic, York Environmental Sustainability Institute and Environmental Sustainability at York.

The Sustainability Clinic