EdD Ann-Christin Furu is currently affiliated with the Åbo Akademi University as project researcher in early childhood education and care (ECEC). Her current research concerns sustainability issues within ECEC, with a special focus on the relation between nature connectedness, resilience, and sustainability education. The research is built on a relational worldview and informed by post-humanistic perspectives on ECEC and sustainability education. She is currently also exploring issues of childhood during corona from the perspective of children´s participation as a key element of resilience.

Her research primarily seeks to support teacher professionalism among pre- and in-service teachers in ECEC and to explore means to develop high-quality learning cultures in settings through collegial learning processes. As part of this interest, she developed the PROSUS tool for promoting sustainability in early years settings with her colleague Satu Valkonen at the University of Helsinki.

Furu has 20+ years of experience of teacher education. As a senior lecturer she has long been responsible for academic courses related to the social and cultural dimensions of sustainability. She has regularly been involved in continuous professional development projects and courses which focus on various aspects of sustainability in ECEC. She often adopts narrative and arts-based approaches to both research and teaching.

Furu is affiliated with the Helsinki Institute of Sustainability Science (HELSUS) and the Finnish transdisciplinary network of environmental and sustainability education research (SIRENE). She is also a convenor of the EECERA special interest group in sustainability. She holds a master degree in speech therapy from the University of Helsinki (1998) and completed her master degree as well as her licentiate and doctoral degrees in education at the Åbo Akademi University.