tom.hargreaves@uea.ac.uk

I studied for a BA in Geography at Cambridge University (2002) where I first became interested in the inter-relations between environmental and social change. Subsequently I completed Masters degrees in ‘Leadership for Sustainable Development’ (with Forum for the Future / Middlesex University, 2003) and in ‘Environment Science and Society’ (at University College London, 2005) before completing my ESRC-funded PhD at the University of East Anglia which sought to develop socio-cultural understandings of pro-environmental behaviour change processes through an ethnographic case study of a behaviour change intervention in a workplace (2008). Since my PhD I have been working on a multi-university and interdisciplinary project concerned with developing socially and politically plausible ‘Pathways to a Low Carbon Energy Economy’ (funded by EPSRC). On this project my research has looked specifically at householder engagement with energy through improved feedback mechanisms such as real time displays and at the challenges involved in interdisciplinary research that spans the social science and engineering divide. I took up my current post as an ESRC Postdoctoral Research Fellow on 1st November 2009. In this role I am seeking to advance my doctoral research and the research agenda on sustainable lifestyles and pro-environmental behaviour more generally by further exploring the social and cultural aspects of behaviour change and environmental socialisation processes.