Harper Loonsk, Climate Resilience Manager

Harper is the Climate Resilience Manager for Highland Adapts. Building on her academic background in ethnic studies, migration, and environmental sustainability, Harper is passionate about climate resilience and environmental justice. In addition to working in the environment sector, Harper also has experience in refugee and asylum law. She is particularly interested in partnership building, climate data democratisation, and nature-based resilience.

Latest

Land based adaptation skills – research for Inner Forth Futures

In summer 2022 Sniffer collaborated with greenspace scotland on a piece of research for Inner Forth Futures partnership as part of its Climate FORTH (Furthering Our Resilience Through Heritage) project development phase.
The role of creative practice in bringing about change

Ruth Wolstenholme, Sniffer’s Managing Director, reflects on Sniffer’s role in the CreaTures project and the exciting outputs from it.
Invitation to Quote: South East Scotland Economic Assessment of Climate Risks and Opportunities

We are looking to appoint a suitably qualified consultant to undertake an economic assessment of the climate risks and opportunities for the Edinburgh and South East Scotland Region.
Harper Loonsk, Climate Resilience Manager

Harper is the Climate Resilience Manager for Highland Adapts. Building on her academic background in ethnic studies, migration, and environmental sustainability, Harper is passionate about climate resilience and environmental justice. In addition to working in the environment sector, Harper also has experience in refugee and asylum law. She is particularly interested in partnership building, climate data democratisation, and nature-based resilience.

Jess Barrett, Communications Manager

Jess has over a decade of experience working in communication roles for charities, public bodies, and businesses, mostly recently in nature conservation. She is passionate about the power of communications to connect with people and inspire action, and how this can help bring positive change for communities and the environment.
Linda McConaghie, Climate Resilience Manager

Linda has worked in the environmental sector for over 25 years exclusively for charities and not-for-profit organisations. She is passionate about tacking environmental and social injustice and specialises in fostering partnership and community-led action, programme development and co-ordination and project delivery. With an academic background in environmental management, she is interested in the use of nature-based solutions to tackle biodiversity loss and the impacts of climate change.
Kirsty Lewin, Senior Climate Resilience Manager

Kirsty has worked in the environmental and sustainability sector for most of her career, starting in New Zealand before returning to the UK. She has experience in the public, private and voluntary sectors, and has a particular interest in the relationship between local community aspirations and national policy. She specialises in multi-partner programmes, and has a strong understanding of community activities that are led and delivered by volunteers.
Emilie Wadsworth, Senior Climate Resilience Manager

Emilie has worked in the environmental sector in Scotland for approaching 20 years, starting out research climate change and then entering into ecology. She has a particular interest in blue-green infrastructure, nature-based solutions and biodiversity. She enjoys partnership working and collaborative projects that make a real difference to the environment and lives of communities.
Andrew Williams, Project Manager

Andrew is a sustainability professional with experience working in marketing, communications, and project management around environmental and social justice issues. He works on the Creative Climate Futures project at Sniffer, building climate resilience across Glasgow. Andrew has a particular interest in how community climate action can allow under-represented groups to have their voices heard.
Jonny Casey, Head of Climate Ready Leadership

Jonny has over 10 years’ experience in supporting communities, businesses, and governments to implement climate adaptation and resilience policies and initiatives in the UK and globally. He has worked with rural communities through to international institutions, with particular expertise in the agriculture sector, creating innovative partnerships for locally-led adaptation.
Alex Cameron Smith, Climate Resilience Manager

After building an academic foundation around nature and climate change, Alex has spent the last 15 years working with non-profits around the world. She specialises in collaborative project delivery, establishing beneficial partnerships, and people-centred engagement to amplify marginalised voices. Alex is dedicated to leveraging systemic change and works on multi-level community projects across Sniffer programmes to integrate climate justice at their core.
Ruth Wolstenholme, Managing Director

Ruth trained as a natural and social scientist and has a Masters degrees in both. Ruth is a passionate facilitator with a keen ear for a good idea. She has been involved in Sniffer from the start and enjoys working for a small company that brings people with different perspectives together to find creative approaches to ensuring a fairer and flourishing future for all. As well as building on a scientific and policy evidence base, Ruth is a strong advocate weaving in local knowledge, climate just
Aoife Hutton, Climate Resilience Manager

Aoife has worked with the private, public and third sector to support their response to the climate crisis. Aoife is particularly interested in partnership development, collaboration and working together to address multiple inequalities. With a background in ecology, Aoife is passionate about bridging the science-communication gap and making our messaging accessible to everyone. She was recently named in University of Edinburgh’s Climate 75 alumni list.
Ben Connor, Head of Climate Ready Placemaking

Ben leads Sniffer's Climate Ready Placemaking work, and joined the team in 2022 after ten years' experience working in the environment sector across the UK. He has held roles in local government, civil society and partnership organisations, most recently working for the Greater London Authority on a range of green infrastructure and climate adaptation policies and programmes. Ben is particularly interested in nature-based solutions, community climate action, and place-based approaches.

Vacancies

Find out about the latest opportunities to work with Sniffer and our projects. Subscribe to the Sniffer newsletter to receive opportunities.
Flood Resilient Scotland 2024 Conference – Scotland’s Flood Resilient Future

Sniffer was delighted to host the newly branded 2024 Sniffer Flooding Conference. The conference was held at Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh on 08-09 February 2024 and was a hybrid event.
Vision, mission and values

Sniffer acts as a catalyst, fostering collaboration across sectors and places to ensure transformation towards a flourishing and fairer future for all in a changing climate
FRM2023 Conference - Water Resilient Places

Sniffer was delighted to host the return of the annual Scottish Flood Risk Management Conference. The 2-day hybrid conference was held in person on 22 – 23 February 2023 at Perth Concert Hall. We welcomed over 600 delegates - the biggest Scottish FRM conference to date. Presentations and recordings from the event are now available online.
Adaptation Scotland

Sniffer is helping Scotland get ready for the impacts of climate change by raising awareness of climate risks and opportunities, and creating catalysts for collaborative action through the Adaptation Scotland Programme.
Climate Ready Clyde

Sniffer is a key enabler and secretariat for Climate Ready Clyde, a leading cross-sector initiative working to create and deliver a shared vision, strategy and action plan for an adapting Glasgow City Region.
Our story
Flood Risk Management Conference 2018

The 2018 conference was held at the Strathclyde Technology and Innovation Centre in Glasgow from 5-6 February. A full conference summary report and all the presentations from the conference are now available to download. Thank to all those who contributed and attended for making another successful year.
Our Board of Trustees

Our Board of Trustees is responsible for governance and strategy.
Flood Resilience

Sniffer helps to manage flood risk in Scotland by sharing good practice and strengthening professional networks through innovative events.