Leonie Joubert

Leonie Joubert is a South African science writer and author specialising in climate and environmental collapse, energy policy, and why cities leave us hungry, heavy, and sick (the hunger-obesity poverty-paradox). More recently, her work delves into the realm of public mental health.She has spent the better part of 20 years exploring these topics through books, journalism, communication support to academics and civil society organisations, non-fiction creative writing, and podcasting.

Leonie Joubert has a master's in science journalism from Stellenbosch University and a bachelor's in journalism and media studies from Rhodes University. She is an author of more than ten books, including: Scorched, South Africa's changing climate, publisher Wits University Press (1 October 2006); Boiling point, people in a changing climate, publisher Wits University Press (1 January 2008); Invaded, the biological invasion of South Africa publisher Wits University Press (17 October 2009) and The Hungry Season, feeding South Africa's cities, publisher Picador Africa (6 September 2012). Read her full publication list and portfolio here.

Her first book, Scorched: South Africa's Changing Climate (Wits University Press, 2006), blends the facts of climate change "with humour, history, vivid descriptions of people" and delivers it with "an amazing personal sense of wonder". Her second book, Invaded, the biological invasion of South Africa's cities, documents the consequences of the introduction to alien species into South Africa. Her last book, The Hungry Season, feeding southern Africa's cities, is an exploration of hunger and malnutrition in southern Africa. It focuses on the story about hunger and malnutrition, in a world where they are surrounded by food. She states that it's the access to the food and what choices people make when they get the food.

Joubert was awarded two honorary Sunday Times Alan Paton Non-Fiction Awards, one for Scorched in 2007 and the other for Invaded in 2010. Alan Paton Award.

Leonie was the Ruth First Fellowship by the University of the Witwatersrand. She was named the 2009 SAB Environmental Journalist of the Year in the print media category, was listed in the Mail & Guardian’s 200 Young South Africans You Must Take to Lunch (2008); and was shortlisted for the 2016 City Press Tafelberg Nonfiction Award.