Geography and Environment welcomes six new academic staff

Six colleagues have recently joined the Department, complementing and strengthening our research and teaching profile with innovative and exciting new agendas.

Dr Azmeary Ferdoush has joined us as Lecturer in Human Geography from the University of Eastern Finland, where he was a Research Council of Finland postdoctoral researcher. Azmeary’s research sits at the intersection of political geography, critical geopolitics, decolonial praxis, and qualitative research methods, with expertise in the study of state, territory, borders, sovereignty, (non)citizenship and migration. He has a PhD in Geography from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and is the author of Sovereign Atonement: Citizenship, Territory and the State at the Bangladesh-India Border (Cambridge University Press).

Dr Beki McElvain has joined us as Lecturer in Human Geography from the University of California, Berkeley, where she recently completed a PhD in City & Regional Planning. Beki is an urban economic geographer working at the intersection of climate and disaster risk, social studies of finance, and critical perspectives on development throughout the global South. Beki’s doctoral research was situated in Mexico City, where she investigated the political economy of urban climate and disaster governance in relation to shifting state and development finance strategies.

Professor Jairo Quiros-Tortos has joined us as Professor of Practice - Sustainable Transitions from the University of Costa Rica, where he was Professor of Integrated Assessment Modelling. Jairo is an internationally recognised expert in energy systems and climate change, specialising in decarbonisation strategies in Latin America and the Caribbean. At Loughborough, Jairo has taken on the important role of Deputy Director of the Climate Compatible Growth Programme (CCG) within our Centre for Sustainable Transitions: Energy, Environment and Resilience (STEER).

Dr Rihab Khalid has joined us as Research Associate in MECS, the Modern Energy Cooking Services programme, also housed by STEER. Rihab is an interdisciplinary feminist energy researcher working at the intersections of energy access, gender equity and spatial justice. At MECS, she will be focusing on socio-technical approaches to clean cooking transitions and tackling critical global challenges of access, demand and distribution. She has a PhD in Architecture from the University of Cambridge.

Dr Aine Petrulaityte has also joined us as Research Associate in MECS. With a strong background in product design and UX research in industry settings, Aine specialises in user behaviours and the usability of cooking appliances. Her previous experience includes developing innovative design tools and contributing to international development projects in Latin America, Asia and Africa. Aine has a PhD in Design for Sustainability from Brunel University.

Dr Robert Houseago has joined us as a Vice-Chancellor’s Independent Research Fellow, Loughborough’s prestigious and highly competitive research fellowship. He is an environmental scientist interested in fluvial and coastal environments, including hydrodynamics and fluid-structure interactions, sediment dynamics, and the roughness of rivers. Bobby has a PhD in Environmental Science from the University of Hull and was previously a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Durham University.

Head of Geography and Environment, Michael Hoyler, commented: "I am delighted to be able to welcome such a diverse and international group of talented and inspirational scholars to our Department. We are all excited about the new perspectives colleagues bring to Loughborough, and the new opportunities for collaborative research tackling some of the fundamental social and environmental challenges of our time."