Leslie King has been dedicated to environmental education and inspiring and empowering people to enter and excel in the environmental field, solving local to global environmental problems including climate change and biodiversity loss.

Her research and teaching interests include integrated environmental sciences and planning, Indigenous environmental perspectives, environmental justice, climate change and biodiversity, environmental governance and knowledge systems, and local and traditional ecological knowledge.

Before coming to Royal Roads, King was a faculty at the University of Vermont, the Founding Chair of Environment at the University of Northern British Columbia, the Founding Dean of the Clayton H. Riddell Faculty of Environment, Earth and Resources at the University of Manitoba and Vice President Academic at Vancouver Island University. She has developed environmental programs in Canada, the U.S. and Africa and designed curriculum from undergraduate to Ph.D. programs and environmental literacy and anti-racism across the curriculum.

Her research sites are primarily in Africa and the Arctic as well as in Indigenous and local communities in North America. She has supervised scores of graduate students and takes delight in involving her students in her applied research and bringing research findings into the classroom and community.

Recent research projects include Conflicting Knowledge Systems in the Pacific Northwest, Meeting the Climate Change Challenge (MC3) Co-PI with Prof. Ann Dale; Protected Areas and Poverty Reduction in Africa and Canada; Arctic Climate Predictions: Pathways to Sustainable Resilient Societies (ARCPATH); Northern Knowledge for Resilience, Sustainable Environments and Adaptation in Coastal Communities in the Circumpolar Arctic (NORSEACC); and Clam Gardens in BC: Eco-cultural Restoration (with Prof. Audrey Dallimore).