Dr Brendan Doody

Brendan is a human geographer examining transformations in mobility and urban life. His research focuses on everyday cultures and politics, emerging innovations and markets, and urban governance and experimentation. He is currently a research associate on the Economic and Social Research Council funded project, ‘Experimenting with robots as a new urban infrastructure’. Brendan obtained his PhD in Geography from the Department of Geography, Durham University, under the auspices of a Commonwealth Scholarship. He also holds a Bachelor of Recreation Management (Parks) and Masters of Applied Science at Lincoln University, New Zealand.

Prior to this role, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Transport Studies Unit (TSU), University of Oxford (2017-2022) and the Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge (2015-2017). In the TSU, he was involved in projects on vehicle automation, electrification and sharing. These projects explored in different ways how the (potential) adoption and use of such innovations might be affected by existing everyday and institutional practices, the design of interfaces, technologies and infrastructures, and different business models. At the University of of Cambridge, he examined how emerging social, technical and consumption trends were shaping material demands and carbon emissions associated with the production and use of cars. From 2008-2011, Brendan worked as a social scientist on energy, climate change and natural hazards at GNS Science in Wellington, New Zealand.