About Me

Three key dimensions of my career – research, education and social impact– all oscillate around a key focal point, that is understanding and addressing key intersecting development, social and environmental issues in contemporary consumer societies.

and I am Assistant Professor in the Sociology of Sustainable Consumption at the Environmental Policy Group, Wageningen University.

I hold a PhD in Human Geography from the National University of Ireland, Galway (NUI Galway), an MSc degree from University College London, and a Postgrad diploma in Teaching & Learning in Higher Education from NUI Galway.

I sit on the Executive Board for the Sustainable Consumption Research and Action initiative (SCORAI) Europe, the board of the Consumption and Society Research group of the European Sociological Association and I am editorial board member for the newly launched journal Consumption and Society (Bristol University Press). I am also a board member of An Mheitheal Rothar, a community-driven circular economy initiative in Galway.

As a critical human geography-sociologist, my research interests lie in exploring, analysing and deconstructing the social, environmental, political, cultural and experiential dimensions of development as they play out in diverse urbanising contexts.

Specifically, I focus on everyday life as a lens through which to study broader social-environmental change process, and as a site where intervention and change play out.

I draw on an interdisciplinary mix of social science concepts and methods for critically conceptualising and studying social and environmental change as it plays out in situated daily lives and practices across space, time and place.

Alongside my research, I supervise student research and teach on environmental sociology and human geography across a range of topics relating to sustainable development, society-environment, and production-consumption relations at undergraduate (BSc) and postgraduate (MSc, PhD) levels.

I am actively committed to socially impactful work and engaging with policy, governance actors and communities on matters of consumption and social-environmental change

 With a central concern and focus on the wider implications of environmental social science for addressing wicked and complex societal challenges, I embed a strong focus on social impact and engagement throughout my work. I am committed to interrogating the value and application of critical social theory and methods for informing progressive social and environmental change and engage with policy makers, urban governance actors and communities on a range of initiatives and topics relating to consumption and social-environmental change. Here I seek to work at the science-policy interface to co-construct and co-design sustainability interventions and initiatives and disseminate sociological insights to a larger public audience.  

I am also a trained yoga teacher and am passionate about health, well-being and living through ethical and environmentally conscious means. Other general interests, include playing guitar, singing, travel, socialising and finding ways to get out there and enjoy all the beauty and fun life has to offer!

This website will includes information, posts and reflections on these three intersecting dimensions of my career  (research, education and social impact) as well as my musings on a range of other topics of societal and political relevance.