Dr Lutfun Nahar Lata is a Lecturer in Sociology and Social Policy in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. Lutfun's primary research area focuses on the Sociology of work and employment including the gig economy and the future of work.
Prior to joining the University of Melbourne, she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Science Research at the University of Queensland. Currently, Lutfun is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Institute for Social Science Research at the University of Queensland.
She has written about gig economy, urban marginality, poverty governance, housing and place-based disadvantage. She is a mixed-methods researcher with extensive experience in conducting and publishing qualitative, quantitative and digital research and working with multidisciplinary teams that include stakeholders from academia, industry and local and central governments.
Lutfun is the author of Spatial Justice, Contested Governance and Livelihood Challenges in Bangladesh (Routledge 2023). Her research has been published in journals such as Current Sociology, The Sociological Review, Sociology Compass, Gender, Work & Organization, Cities, Geographical Research, Housing Policy Debate, Journal of Contemporary Asia, and Government Information Quarterly.
Laura is a Research Fellow in the School of Nursing, Midwifery, and Social Work at The University of Queensland. She is also a Research Fellow with the Life Course Centre. She is a highly experienced qualitative social researcher with a strong background across the social sciences and humanities. Her research broadly aims to understand social and cultural responses to inequity and disadvantage, with a strong focus on lived experience. Laura works with vulnerable and marginalised groups at the nexus of culture and disadvantage, especially around ethnicity, gender and sexuality, poverty, and experiences of exclusion and discrimination. She has a particular focus and interest in diaspora and issues around belonging, identity, and social cohesion/isolation.
Charlotte Young is a research fellow at the Institute for Social Science Research at The University of Queensland. Charlotte is a qualitative researcher with interdisciplinary interests spanning sociology, public health, health promotion, and migration studies. Her research focuses on the systemic drivers of migrant health inequities and how they can be redressed. Charlotte is also interested in the ways migrants adapt and respond to systemic and structural drivers of inequity. Recently, she has been exploring how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted migrant and refugee background tertiary students and how young culturally and linguistically diverse social media influencers have been promoting COVID-safe behaviours online. Charlotte also explores immigrant organisations as critical settings to influence health and wellbeing. She is passionate about producing impactful research to affect positive change and tackling migrant health problems in solidarity with the communities they affect. Charlotte also has experience conducting evaluation research for large-scale health interventions.
