Dallas O'Dell

Doctoral Candidate • London School of Economics
Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science
Focus on sufficiency and degrowth

Summary

Dallas is an environmentalist committed to applying psychology and behavioural science tools to motivate mass adoption of sustainable practices, in the hopes of creating structural changes to unsustainable systems, mitigating the threat of climate change, and inspiring a more equitable world. Her MSc dissertation applied behavioural science techniques to the circular economy, focusing on clothing waste. She is now pursuing a Ph.D. in the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science at LSE to study sustainable consumption in connection with a broader system-level sustainability agenda, such as degrowth.

Experience

Dallas holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University in Policy Analysis & Management, which incorporated economics, public policy, statistics, and sociology. She then worked in economic consulting in New York City before coming to the LSE for an MSc in Behavioural Science.

Grants

  • LSE Research Partnership Scheme: funding to work with an entrepreneur and LSE alumni to conduct research relevant to a social enterprise startup
  • Phelan US Centre Summer Research Grant: funding to conduct research related to degrowth on a sample of US participants.

Current Work

Dallas is a Ph.D. student using experimental psychology and environmental economics methods to study reduced consumption and degrowth. The first project is an experiment to compare framing techniques for sustainable products that help facilitate a reduction in consumption and waste. The second project uses a stated preferences method to examine people’s preferences for degrowth-related policies.

Prior Work

  • MSc Dissertation

    Can deadlines reduce procrastination in alternative clothing disposal methods?

    08/25/20

Blog

  • In a system that demands too much, can working less actually achieve more?

    03/28/23
  • A summary of the various costs associated with academic conferences, collating potential solutions to reduce those costs, and more importantly expressing the need for both cultural and institutional changes to usher in new forms of connecting that benefit people and the planet.
    Featured in LSE’s Higher Education Blog.

    08/04/23

Inspirational Posts

BUY LESS. LIVE MORE.