Dr. Beth Karlin is the founder and CEO of See Change Institute, a research (and practice) institute devoted to studying and shaping behavior change programs for the greater good. Beth and her team deliver actionable research to support organizations in the fields of energy/climate change, health, social justice, and philanthropy. They are currently working on projects to increase Medicaid enrollment, measure inclusion in popular film, understand and influence adoption of smart home technology, and support local community choice energy programs.
Beth has published her work in venues ranging from Psychological Bulletin to Peace Studies and is a sought after speaker and trainer on Storytelling, Smart Homes, and the Social Science of Sustainability (and she loves alliteration). She is Past President of the American Psychological Association’s Division 34 (Environmental Psychology), U.S. National Expert on the International Energy Agency’s Demand-Side Management (DSM) Task 24 on Behavior Change, and a committee member on the National Academy of Sciences Environmental Health Matters Initiative. She also founded the Transformational Media Lab at the University of California, Irvine and served as Research Director at the University of Southern California’s Norman Lear Center, which studies the impact of entertainment on society.
Before receiving her Ph.D. in Social Ecology from UC Irvine, Beth spent nearly a decade working in K-12 education, holding positions as a teacher, counselor, and school administrator. She believes that the role of a researcher is not only to better understand the world but also to improve it and hopes that her work is able to serve both purposes.