Rate My Professor Colette Mortreux

Dr. Colette Mortreux is a human geographer serving as Lecturer in Human Geography, Anthropology and Development Studies in the School of Social Sciences at Monash University. She obtained her PhD in Geography from the University of Melbourne in 2015 and a Bachelor of Arts with Honours, majoring in Development Studies and International Relations, from the University of Melbourne in 2008. Prior to her current role, she held a position as Research Fellow in the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Mortreux's research focuses on climate change adaptation, disaster risk reduction, and migration. She investigates how environmental change impacts community development and how communities make decisions in contexts of uncertain environmental futures. Her projects have addressed adaptation pathways for coral atoll communities, household capacity and preparedness for bushfire risk in Australia, perceptions of flood risk and sea level rise planning in Australia, and migration and resettlement decision-making in coastal Ghana, Bangladesh, and India. Her research interests include vulnerability, household dynamics, decision making, gender, and livelihoods.

Mortreux has published key works in prominent journals, including 'Hope as an enabler of climate change adaptation' in Communications Psychology (2025, with Jon Barnett, Sergio Jarillo, and Katharine H. Greenaway), 'Local observations of impacts and responses to climate change in the Marshall Islands' in Climatic Change (2025, with Jon Barnett and Yoshiko Yamaguchi), 'Adaptation for changing deltas' in One Earth (2023), 'Climate change and migration from atolls? No evidence yet' in Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability (2023, with Sergio Jarillo, Jon Barnett, and Elissa Waters), 'Finding hope in Tuvalu's Digital Nation' (2023), 'Between adaptive capacity and action: new insights into climate change adaptation at the household scale' in Environmental Research Letters (2020, with Saffron O'Neill and Jon Barnett), 'Adaptive capacity: exploring the research frontier' in Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change (2017), and the highly cited 'Climate change, migration and adaptation in Funafuti, Tuvalu' in Global Environmental Change (2009, with Jon Barnett). In November 2024, she received the Monash Student Association Teaching Innovation Award. She accepts PhD students and teaches units such as APG5230 Field studies in climate governance.