Susan Clayton considers herself a conservation psychologist: interested in understanding and promoting a healthy relationship between humans and nature. She is the Whitmore-Williams Professor of Psychology and chair of Environmental Studies at the College of Wooster. She has authored or edited five books, including the Oxford Handbook of Environmental and Conservation Psychology (2012), Conservation Psychology (with Gene Myers), and Identity and the Natural Environment (2003, with Susan Opotow). She co-authored the American Psychological Association (APA) reports on “Psychology and Global Climate Change” and “Psychological Impacts of Climate Change.”

Clayton currently focuses on the implications of climate change for psychological wellbeing. She developed an Environmental Identity (EID) Scale to assess the degree to which the natural environment plays an important part in the way in which people think about themselves, which is being tested in multiple countries.

Clayton is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and of the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues, of which she is also president-elect. Her PhD, in social psychology, is from Yale University.