World's Best Scientists 2026 revealed!
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Social Sciences and Humanities
UK
2026

D-Index & Metrics

Social Sciences and Humanities

D-Index
77
Citations
28992
World Ranking
452
National Ranking
77

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2026 - Research.com Social Sciences and Humanities in United Kingdom Leader Award
  • 2019 - Member of Academia Europaea

Overview

Melissa Leach is affiliated with the Cambridge Conservation Initiative (CCI) in the United Kingdom. Their research primarily spans the field of Medicine, with a focus on Infectious Diseases, Modeling and Simulation, Global and Planetary Change, Sociology and Political Science, and Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health.

The main topics of their work include:

  • COVID-19 epidemiological studies
  • Viral Infections and Outbreaks Research
  • Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development
  • Vaccine Coverage and Hesitancy
  • Zoonotic diseases and public health
  • Sustainability and Climate Change Governance
  • COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts

Melissa Leach has published several papers, including:

  • Post-pandemic transformations: How and why COVID-19 requires us to rethink development, 2020, World Development
  • Food politics and development, 2020, World Development
  • Principles for knowledge co-production in sustainability research, 2020, Nature Sustainability
  • Local response in health emergencies: key considerations for addressing the COVID-19 pandemic in informal urban settlements, 2020, Environment and Urbanization
  • Solar geoengineering: The case for an international non-use agreement, 2022, Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Change

Frequent co-authors of Melissa Leach include:

  • Hayley MacGregor
  • Annie Wilkinson
  • Ian Scoones
  • Melissa Parker
  • Grace Akello

They have been published frequently in the following venues:

  • IDS Bulletin
  • Social Science & Medicine
  • World Development
  • Royal Society Open Science
  • Nature Sustainability

Melissa Leach has also contributed to book publications, including a forthcoming book titled Naturekind due in 2025 from Princeton University Press.

In recognition of their contributions, Melissa Leach was awarded membership in the Academia Europaea in 2019.

Best Publications

  • Green Grabbing: a new appropriation of nature?

    James Fairhead;Melissa Leach;Ian Scoones

  • Environmental Entitlements: Dynamics and Institutions in Community-Based Natural Resource Management

    Melissa Leach;Robin Mearns;Ian Scoones

  • Misreading the African Landscape: Society and Ecology in a Forest-Savanna Mosaic

    James Fairhead;Melissa Leach

  • Principles for knowledge co-production in sustainability research

    Albert V. Norström;Christopher Cvitanovic;Christopher Cvitanovic;Marie F. Löf;Simon West;Simon West;Simon West

  • The Lie of the Land: Challenging Received Wisdom on the African Environment

    M. Leach;R. Mearns

  • Integration : the key to implementing the Sustainable Development Goals

    Mark Stafford-Smith;David Griggs;David Griggs;Owen Gaffney;Farooq Ullah

  • Reframing Deforestation: Global Analyses and Local Realities: Studies in West Africa

    James Fairhead;Melissa Leach

  • Dynamic Sustainabilities: Technology, Environment, Social Justice

    Melissa Leach;Ian Scoones;Andy Stirling

  • Transforming Innovation for Sustainability

    Melissa Leach;Johan Rockström;Paul Raskin;Ian Christopher Scoones

  • False forest history, complicit social analysis: Rethinking some West African environmental narratives

    James Fairhead;Melissa Leach

  • Post-pandemic transformations: How and why COVID-19 requires us to rethink development.

    Melissa Leach;Hayley MacGregor;Ian Scoones;Annie Wilkinson

  • The politics of green transformations

    Ian Scoones;Peter Newell;Melissa Leach

  • Governing epidemics in an age of complexity: Narratives, politics and pathways to sustainability

    Melissa Leach;Ian Scoones;Andrew Stirling

  • Science and citizens : globalization and the challenge of engagement

    Melissa Leach;Ian Scoones;Brian Wynne

  • Environmental Entitlements: a Framework for Understanding the Institutional Dynamics of Environmental Change

    Melissa Leach;Robin Mearns;Ian Scoones

  • Equity and sustainability in the Anthropocene: a social–ecological systems perspective on their intertwined futures

    Melissa Leach;Belinda Reyers;Xuemei Bai;Eduardo S. Brondizio

  • Desertification. Narratives, winners & losers.

    J. Swift;M. Leach;R. Mearns

  • Exploring understandings of institutions and uncertainty: new directions in natural resource management

    Lyla Mehta;Melissa Leach;Peter Newell;Ian Scoones

  • Misreading the African landscape

    James Fairhead;Melissa Leach

  • Vaccine Anxieties: Global Science, Child Health and Society

    James Fairhead;Melissa Leach

  • Misreading the African Landscape: Society and Ecology in a Forest-Savanna Mosaic.

    Hubertus Jacobus van Hensbergen;James Fairhead;Melissa Leach

Frequent Co-Authors

Ian Scoones
Ian Scoones University of Sussex
Andrew Stirling
Andrew Stirling University of Sussex
Johannes Lehmann
Johannes Lehmann Cornell University
Adrian Smith
Adrian Smith University of Oxford
Brian Wynne
Brian Wynne Lancaster University
James L. N. Wood
James L. N. Wood University of Cambridge
Frans Berkhout
Frans Berkhout King's College London
Gerald Bloom
Gerald Bloom Institute of Development Studies
Richard A. Adegbola
Richard A. Adegbola Nigerian Institute of Medical Research
Andrew A. Cunningham
Andrew A. Cunningham Zoological Society of London

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