Mark Andrachuk, PhD
Principal Consultant
Mark has more than 15 years of experience in the environmental social sciences in Canadian and international contexts. He has worked on a wide range of projects related to co-management of small-scale fisheries, biodiversity conservation, participatory science, sustainability transitions, climate change adaptation, and environmental governance, among other topics. A common thread across all of this work is the use of qualitative, collaborative social science methods.
Mark established ReConnect Consulting because he saw the opportunity to support organizations and communities to address environmental challenges through empathetic, solutions-oriented research. One of the resounding lessons gained through Mark’s experiences is that it is critical to reflect on whose stories we listen to. Meaningful and lasting solutions to environmental problems tend to arise when attention is paid to the process of engagement. This is why ReConnect encourages clients to pay as much attention to whose voices are missing as those who are speaking the loudest.
Mark’s interdisciplinary education and training, emphasizing seeing connectivity and the ‘big picture’, has helped him become adept in communicating across many fields and disciplines. He holds a PhD in Geography and Environmental Management (Waterloo), Masters of Arts in Geography (Guelph), and a Bachelor of Environmental Studies (Waterloo). He has more than 20 peer reviewed publications that can be found on LinkedIn, Google Scholar, or Orcid.
Collaborators
Mark partners with thoughtful, skilled colleagues to suit the needs of individual projects. Meet some recent collaborators.
Graham Epstein, PhD
Research Assistant Professor (University of Waterloo), Consultant (Blue Range Solutions)
Lowine Hill, PhD
Ella-Kari Muhl, PhD
Researcher, Stellenbosch University
What Clients Say About Working With ReConnect
“We had a wonderful experience working with Mark and Graham. We were looking for a team of consultants who were truly interested in co-creating and collaborating on the output we were seeking to create (a social monitoring guide) and found just that. Mark and Graham both brought their deep technical knowledge and their networks of knowledgeable scientists to our project, and worked in close collaboration with us to ensure that what we developed as fit-for-context and adapted to the needs of our organization.”
— Shauna Mahajan (Lead Social Scientist, Global Science, World Wildlife Fund)
“ReConnect proved to be incredibly valuable with their thoughtful approach to engagement and consultation. Mark and Joy were able to pull cohesive narratives backed by stakeholder input obtained from surveys, interviews and workshops. Thanks to ReConnect we came away with insights that were key to our coalition of organizations working on strategic conservation planning in southern Ontario. I would highly recommend working with ReConnect if you are looking for community engagement and consultation on conservation projects.”
— Jackie Hamilton (Senior Research and Policy Advisor, Greenbelt Foundation)
“It was a pleasure to work with Mark and Lowine on an assignment on decolonisation of climate action. Throughout the assignment, Mark and Lowine were professional, hardworking and committed to the task outlined in their ToR, ensuring they met their deliverables on time, and produced reports and presentations to a high quality and standard, utilising their expertise on this topic. They also conducted a number of key informant interviews with staff and partners, able to engage a range of actors, build good relationships, and capture, analyse and present information obtained clearly and concisely. I hope to work with them again and would highly recommend them to others.”
— Sarah McIvor (Senior Researcher, Climate Change Group, International Institute of Environment and Development)
“Working with Mark and Graham was a fantastic experience and we couldn’t have asked for a better collaboration. We were looking for a team of consultants with expertise in assessing social outcomes of conservation interventions, but with enough flexibility and patience to work with us and help us realize our vision. Together we developed a light-touch yet comprehensive social monitoring and evaluation toolkit that may be used across our organization (WWF) and external collaborators for years to come. They brought years of experience to this endeavor, a rich network of external social scientists, and tremendous persistence and enthusiasm during the lengthy feedback process by us and dozens of reviewers. As a non-social scientist , I’ve learned a lot from Mark and Graham over the past few months and I am looking forward to future collaborations. ”
— Abel Valdivia (Marine Conservation Scientist, Oceans Team, World Wildlife Fund)
“It was a pleasure to work with Mark on a recent human dimensions study. He quickly made sense of a complicated dataset and generated a report that was a lucid synthesis of survey data. We then worked collaboratively to turn it into a peer reviewed paper. His ability to distill data into simple story lines and his command of the literature ensured that our work was impactful.
— Steven J. Cooke (Department of Biology and Institute of Environmental and Interdisciplinary Sciences) and Nathan Young (School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies)