Dr. Maria Helena Saari is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Oulu. With an interdisciplinary background in education, translation studies, and animal law, she has spent the past decade advancing the theory-praxis of multispecies education research. Maria currently serves as Co-lead of the education work package in the Strategic Research Council funded project MUST: Enabling Multispecies Transitions in Cities and Regions and Principal Investigator of FlourishED: Education for Multispecies Peaceability and Flourishing, a Strategic International Partnership project between the University of Oulu and University of Namibia on human-animal conflict and coexistence.
Her doctoral thesis, Animals as Stakeholders in Education: Towards an Educational Reform for Interspecies Sustainability, received the Senior Animal Law Research Award from the International Centre for Animal Law & Policy at the Autonomous University of Barcelona for its innovative interdisciplinary approach. She has served as thematic lead in diverse research initiatives, including as Co-lead of the Envisioning Sustainability Hub of the Biodiverse Anthropocenes Research Programme and Co-lead of the Environmental Education Working Group in the Global Innovation Network in Teaching and Learning (GINTL) partnership between the University of Oulu and University of Namibia and PI of the Multispecies Climate Change Education project at the Human-Animal Studies Hub at the Institute of Social Sciences-University of Lisbon.
Maria co-coordinates courses on multispecies studies and environmental education at the University of Oulu. She has also served as a commissioned curriculum developer for the International Baccalaureate Organization on multispecies justice climate change education. Her research interests include human-Ocean relations, ocean literacies, more-than-human rights and multispecies governance, education policy, political ecology, critical animal studies, multispecies justice-oriented education, and building communities of practice in and beyond education for multispecies peaceability and flourishing.