audrey verma

about

Research area & interests

Hello world! I am an interdisciplinary social scientist, and I am most fascinated by knowledge production in our digital world. The big question that drives me: how do digital technologies shape the ways in which we come to know and interact with the world around us.

My key research interests include technologies for wildlife conservation; digitally-enabled environmental participation; diversity, inclusion and representation in virtual landscapes; ‘digital afterlives’; and contemporary knowledge production discourses and practices, including interdisciplinarity. I am always on the lookout for collaborative research & hands-on work in these areas, so please feel free to contact me.

My PhD research (2012-2016) with the University of Aberdeen was on the role of digital technologies in human – nature relationships. In 2016, I had the wonderful opportunities of lecturing in Sociology at the world’s oldest business school, and of working on the novel Citizen Sense project. An ongoing postdoc with Newcastle University sees me conducting an ethnographic study to understand the interdisciplinary knowledge production processes occurring within the Creative Fuse North East project.

When not being a social scientist and minor activist, I can almost definitely be found outdoors looking for birds and bugs. The nature blog I co-write is Winging It.

Formal education

• 2016: PhD in Biological Sciences, University of Aberdeen; affiliated with dot.rural RCUK Digital Economy Hub and The James Hutton Institute (Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences group) [see my post-graduation interview here]
• 2011: Master’s in Sociology (M. Soc. Sci.), National University of Singapore
• 2007: Bachelor’s (first class honours) in Sociology (B. Soc. Sci. Hons), National University of Singapore

Languages

• spoken and written: English and Malay
• spoken: Mandarin and Hindi/Punjabi
• beginner: Arabic