In brief, my research is concerned with everyday practices and technologies, and how they can be related to sustainability.

These include practices like playing, working or doing the laundry, and their connection to energy demand and wider impacts such as greenhouse gas emissions. I apply multidisciplinary observational approaches which juxtapose quantitative measures of demand and impact, and qualitative/quantitative data from everyday life (e.g. room occupancy, appliance times-of-use, routines of practice, and social meanings and expectations). Specific empirical sites have included cooking, thermal comfort and digital media and entertainment.

I am interested in how digital technologies affect everyday practice; in other words, how gadgets and online services affect what we do. This is causing profound change in what are percieved as normal ways of living and being, and has serious implications for global environmental sustainability, and how people participate in and contribute to societies. A sampling of recent topics (technologies): thermal comfort (learning thermostats), online service demand (smartphones), watching on-demand video (superfast broadband and smart TVs).

Academic qualifications:

1st class BA Hons Sociology, Lancaster (2008)

Doctor of Philosophy Mobile Computing, University of Cambridge (2003)

Master of Philosophy Signal Processing, University of Cambridge (1999)

1st class BSc Electrical Engineering (1998)

Employment:

Lecturer, School of Computing and Communications, Lancaster University, 2005-present

Research Associate, Computing Department, Lancaster University, 2003-2005

Conference programme committee service:  UbiComp (four years), Pervasive (three years), CHI 2014

IEEE Pervasive Magazine, Recognised Reviewer Panel

Visiting Faculty:  Microsoft Research Cambridge, June-August 2009; Intel Research Cambridge, December 2005