Vanessa Timmer is a Fulbright Research Fellow from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. During her appointment at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, she is completing her doctoral dissertation under the supervision of Dr. Calestous Juma. Her focus is on the evolving role of transnational civil society actors in the broad societal transition towards sustainability. This research has led her to analyze the dynamic trends and trajectories of the past thirty years from the 1972 UN Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, through the 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro, to the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. She has selected complex adaptive systems theory as her theoretical framework as it provides a useful metaphor and conceptual model for examining the dynamic interactions and organizational responses of transnational civil society actors over time within changing political, social and ecological contexts. Vanessa is analyzing the reasons for their emergence, the form that these actors take, the evolving role that they play in relation to other actors, and the context within which they can be effective. Vanessa completed her undergraduate in Sociology at Queen’s University and her Masters of Science in Environmental Change and Management at Oxford University. Her extra-curricular interests include a passion for theatre, singing, cello, debating, running, and spontaneous adventures. Vanessa plans to return to Vancouver in 2003 and contribute both academically and actively to the sustainability movement.