Dr Emilie Whitaker
School of Health & Society
Current positions
Senior Lecturer
Biography
Emilie is an established ethnographer and sociologist. Passionate about building research capacity and methodological expertise, in 2024 she became the Director of Postgraduate Research for the School of Health and Society.
From 2024- 2026 Emilie is on secondment for two days a week to the Central Analysis and Science Strategy Unit in the civil service.
She holds visiting lectureships in Sociology at Cardiff University and at DePaul University, Chicago. Prior to an academic career, Emilie worked in a variety of policy and research roles in and around Westminster.
Areas of Research
Ethnographic methods and writing, place-making, sociology of everyday life, objects, temporality, creative qualitative methods.
Areas of Supervision
I am interested in supervising ethnographic projects, those using creative qualitative methodologies and those concerned with place, emotion, temporality and culture.
Emilie's teaching interests reflect her commitment to building research capacity across the student population. Her experience in undertaking and training others in ethnographic work is a particular passion, and her teaching across postgraduate programmes reflects this.
As someone rooted in sociology, her teaching is also theoretically and conceptually rich and draws upon the history of ideas. This can be seen in her final year (level 6) UG teaching on precarity, constructions of childhood and the dissertation module.
Qualifications
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Sociology & Social Policy
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Social Research Methods
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Public Policy
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History & Sociology