Neil Ever Osborne is an Assistant Professor in the School of the Environment at Trent University.

His teaching ethos centres on building a bridge from the classroom to the real world for his students while delivering experiential multimedia lectures that bear witness to the complex relationship between people and the planet.

More specifically, Osborne’s teachings elucidate the converging social and environmental issues that narrate our times in a changing — and warming — world.

In this pursuit, he focuses optimistically on humanity’s enduring spirit and nature’s resiliency.

Osborne contends it is crucial for his students to develop a set of core competencies that extend beyond academic proficiency. These include narrative intuition, transmedia acumen, and emotional intelligence, or what he thinks of as cultivated skills that can be used in public speaking, writing, photography, and filmmaking. The development of these core competencies undergird his teaching approach.

Finally, Osborne maintains a very active research program concerned with the above mentioned problems and solutions; students interested in working on emergent and/or existing projects should get directly in touch via email: neilosborne@trentu.ca

• 2023 | The Decanal Award for Teaching Excellence in the Sciences – Trent University [Nomination]

The Centre for Teaching and Learning recognizes the recent use or development of meaningful and/or innovative methods of curriculum design, course instruction, learning materials and technologies, and/or assessment.

• 2023 | The Symons Award for Excellence in Teaching – Trent University [Nomination]

The Centre for Teaching and Learning recognizes faculty and staff members who encourage learning and who offer unique experiences to their students, challenge them to do their best work, and inspire them to learn.

• 2023 | The Explorer’s Club 50 with Rolex [Nomination]

Each year, The Explorers Club 50 recognizes fifty extraordinary individuals changing the world. Naming these global exploration leaders to the EC50 shines a bright light on their extraordinary work, amplifies their voices, and redefines that field of exploration as we know it.

• 2020 | Clean50 – Education & Thought Leadership [Nomination]

Canada’s Clean50 annually offers recognition to Canada’s leaders in sustainability for their contributions over the prior two years.

• Ph.D. in Environmental Studies | Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change | York University
• M.A. in Visual Communication | School of Visual Communication | Ohio University
• B.Sc. in Biology (Specialization in Conservation) | School of the Environment | Trent University

• ERSC-1010: Environmental Science & Sustainability
• ERST-2100: Environmental Science & Politics
• COMM-3002: Media Relations [Durham Campus]
• ERST-3501: Environment & Communication: Oral & Visual Presentation
• ERST-3502: Climate & Environmental Communications [Online]

• GEOG-1030: Human Geography in Global Context | Trent University
• ERST-4802: Greening Campus Environment | Trent University
• BIO-7N: Introduction to Conservation Photography | Stanford University
• LIFES-3Z03: Visual Communication in the Environmental Arena | McMaster University
• ENSC-480: Visual Communication in the Environmental Arena | Queen’s University

NEW PROGRAM OFFERING AT TRENT UNIVERSITY

Help tell solution stories to tackle the greatest challenge of our time: The climate emergency

Stories are the way people make sense of the world. And we have reached a moment in history when there are innumerable stories to tell about climate change and its impact on people and the planet.

Yet, we need more storytellers.

Leveraging Trent’s academic and research strengths in arts-based and environmental education, this new program offering in Climate Communication blends courses across disciplines to teach you a new storytelling approach that examines how to better understand media’s effect on audiences’ morals, values, and behaviours.

Equipped with this knowledge, this new offering at Trent University aims to use more effective climate change communications and visual storytelling to foster a more sustainable and equitable world where our collective well-being is at the heart.

For more information on this exciting new educational experience, please contact National Geographic Explorer Neil Ever Osborne at neilosborne@trentu.ca.