Find an expert

Dr. Amrita Kambo is a multi-disciplinary researcher at The University of Queensland. Her work borrows and applies theoretical constructs from concepts such as ‘social acceptance’ and ‘social licence to operate’ (SLO). These modules can be applied to assess the extent to which a business, or industry or technology gains tacit support from the wider public. Additionally, the SLO concept can be applied to understand standards of responsible behaviour, transparency and accountability in a wide range of settings. To date, Amrita has applied the SLO concept to understand community expectations in the context of renewable energy technologies such as hydrogen and biogas under a project funded by the Future Fuels CRC using familiar methods in social sciences such as surveys, interviews, focus groups and participatory research.

Amrita's wider research interests include sustainable cities, urban infrastructure, planning and place-making. These interests are rooted in the Amrita’s early career and experience in architecture and design.

Amrita’s PhD research included a review of influential topics in context of ‘sustainable’ architecture - ‘regenerative’ design and development, biophilic design, ecosystem services, ‘Geodesign’, biomimicry, green infrastructure, positive development, net-zero design and so on.

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.

Lorraine Mazerolle is an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow (2010–2015) and a Professorial Research Fellow at The University of Queensland, School of Social Science. Her research interests are in experimental criminology, policing, drug law enforcement, regulatory crime control, and crime prevention. She has held many academic leadership roles including Co-Chair of the Crime and Justice Group (Campbell Collaboration), Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Experimental Criminology and Chair of the American Society of Criminology’s (ASC) Division of Experimental Criminology. She is an elected Fellow and past president of the Academy of Experimental Criminology (AEC), and an elected fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences Australia and the American Society of Criminology (ASC). Professor Mazerolle is the recipient of the ASC Division of Experimental Criminology Jerry Lee Lifetime Achievement Award (2019), Partners in Research Excellence Award The University of Queensland (2019), Distinguished Achievement Award of the Center for Evidence Based Crime Policy at George Mason University (2019), ASC Sellin-Glueck Award (2018), the ASC Division of Policing Distinguished Scholar Award (2016), the AEC Joan McCord Award (2013), and the ASC Division of International Criminology Freda Adler Distinguished Scholar Award (2010). She has won numerous US and Australian national competitive research grants on topics such as partnership policing, police engagement with high-risk people and disadvantaged communities, community regulation, problem-oriented policing, police technologies, civil remedies, street-level drug enforcement and policing public housing sites.

Cameron is an Australian Research Council Industry Fellow in partnership with Micah Projects.

His work examines multiple forms of exclusion and social harms. Cameron's research focuses on the nature and experience of poverty, homelessness, and domestic and family violence. He is interested in understanding what societies do to respond to these problems, and what societies ought to do differently to address them. In collaboration with researchers and partners from not-for-profit organisations, Cameron’s program of research seeks to identify how citizens experiencing exclusion and practitioners working with them can work with governments to bring about systematic societal change.

In his first book, The Homeless Person in Contemporary Society, Cameron sought to highlight how the representation of people who are homeless as distinct informs a policy and practice agenda that he characterised as a poverty of ambition. Cameron's second book with Andrew Clarke and Francisco (Paco) Perales, Charity and Poverty in Advanced Welfare States, takes on the question how can we be just by soothing the consequences of poverty without addressing the causes of poverty.

Cameron's most recent book published by Polity Press, Homelessness, demonstrates that homelessness is a punishing, predictable, yet solvable social problem.https://www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?book_slug=9781509554492

I am an Associate Professor of urban planning. Since joining the University of Queensland in 2015, my research has focused on various aspects of the built environment, including urban design, transport, and housing - in both the Global North and South. I approach my work from a feminist perspective, considering the role of gender in the city.

My personal and academic journey has been international in nature. I am a native of Albania. Over the years I have held guest teaching and/or research positions in Austria (UWien), Canada (UBC), Chile (PUC), Italy (IUAV), the Netherlands (UvA), Oman (GUTech), and Vietnam (UTC), and I have provided consultancy services to various United Nations agencies including the UNDP, UNESCAP, and UN Habitat. I speak Italian, Spanish, and French in addition to English and Albanian.

My latest books are Trophy Cities: A Feminist Perspective on New Capitals (Edward Elgar, 2021) and Alternative Planning History and Theory (Routledge, 2023). Alongside my academic research, I also publish broadly in non-academic outlets, including The Conversation, and regularly give interviews on national and international media. Prior to joining academia, I worked in urban design and planning in California.

My research has been funded by domestic and international granting bodies, including the Australian Research Council. Overall, I have attracted $500,000 in external funding and $100,000 in internal funding. For a full list of my publications, click the 'Works' tab, which displays results live from UQ eSpace, or visit my external profiles listed on the left panel.

Qualifications

• Postdoctoral Residency, Delft University of Technology, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, Delft, the Netherlands. 2012-2014.
• PhD in Urban Planning, Polytechnic University of Tirana, Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tirana, Albania. 2007-2010.
• Visiting PhD student, University of California at Los Angeles, Luskin School of Public Affairs, Los Angeles, Ca, USA. 2009.
• Master in Urban Planning, University of Cincinnati, College of Design, Art, Architecture, and Planning, Cincinnati, Oh, USA. Full scholarship award. 2003-2005.
• Visiting Master student, Catholic University of Leuven, Faculty of Architecture (St Lucas), Brussels, Belgium. Recipient of US government FIPSE grant. 2004.
• Professional Degree in Architecture, Polytechnic University of Tirana, Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tirana, Albania. 1998-2003.

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.

I am an urban sociologist and an expert in urban community in all its forms. My research encompasses the outer suburbs in Australia, the gentrifying inner city and informal communities in cities in the Global South. My work focuses on how different urban places and spatial logic in the city impact our opportunities to form attachments to neighbourhoods and each other.

Internationally, I have written extensively on urban poverty in Bangladesh, India and Indonesia and I am currently involved in work on climate change and its effects on the urban poor in collaboration with colleagues in Indonesia, Brazil and Solomon Islands. My latest research concerns the impact of climate change and natural disasters on the urban poor. More than 1 billion people live in informal urban settlements or slums. These people are among the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change. However, adaptation and mitigation policies are being formulated at multiple scales, often without considering the voices of the poor.

I am the Bachelor of Arts Sociology program convenor and an award-winning teacher. I teach courses at all levels in our undergraduate sociology program, including Introduction to Sociology (SOCY1050), An Urban World (SOCY2340) and Advanced Studies in Social Thought: Getting the Big Picture (SOCY3345).

I am also an award-winning photographer (you can see some of my work on my Flickr page.

I am open to proposals from potential Honours and PhD students who share my passion for understanding the social life of cities. Whether you're from Australia, the Global South, or anywhere else in the world, I look forward to the possibility of working together.