My main concern with the issue of flying as an academic is hypocrisy. Most of the projects that I’ve worked on (as a social scientist) have the intention of making the world a better place, or at least mitigating its problems. As I social scientist I spend my time working out how we can change the behaviour of various groups of people. We are highly educated and probably know more than average about environmental issues and other issues of today. And yet, despite being those trying to designing solutions for other people to change their behaviour, and despite being well informed on the earth’s problems, I imagine we fly a lot more than the average citizen. This is hypocrisy. My line manager is sympathetic to my point of view, and my hope is that I will be able to negotiate a career with minimal flying.
PhD was on the psychological benefits of walking in cities and the effects of motor traffic on pedestrian experience.
As an early career researcher I have worked on projects around Green Infrastructure, on demand bus services, the health and happiness of older people and how this can be affected by neighbourhood factors.