Dr Kate O'Sullivan

Kate is a Research Associate based in the School of Social Sciences and Understanding Risk Research Group, Cardiff University. Kate’s background is in human geography and her research interests centre around the relational and multi-scale interplay between humans and environment, and the implications on how places are understood and experienced. Her research has included the exploration of decarbonisation for peripheral communities in Wales with a focus on energy and spatial justice. This work highlighted connections between spatial structures and the distribution of costs and benefits of decarbonisation. Most recently, Kate’s research has focused on new and novel low and zero carbon homes in Wales. Through unpacking the perspectives of the housing developers, emplaced communities and new residents, this research has elucidated how such developments are subject to, and can inform, placemaking processes. In this way they hold potential to evolve with existing community attachments to place, contribute to identity, as well as addressing local and societal scale concerns for climate change.

Joining the Greenhouse Gas Removal via Enhanced Rock Weathering Demonstrator project, Kate’s research will focus on building knowledge of public perceptions and local community acceptance of ERW at 3 case field sites representative of major agricultural land uses in the UK. Her role will centre on exploring how cultural and historical context shape understandings of the environmental and societal risks and benefits of deployment: contributing in-depth knowledge on ERW social/ethical acceptability to the GGR-D Hub and developing upstream ‘social intelligence’ on deployment barriers and opportunities for ERW.