Dr. Irena L. C. Connon (PhD, MRes, MA(Hons), FHEA, PG Cert) is a Social Anthropologist and Transdisciplinary Researcher whose research interests and experience span:

• 1) Understanding human experiences of environmental hazards, including oil spills, extreme weather, and industrial legacy contamination;
• 2) Enhancing inclusion in policies and practices of Disaster Risk Reduction;
• 3) Improving hazard risk communication;
• 4) Understanding the drivers of energy deprivation;
• 5) Geography of worry and emotional affect, particularly in the disaster response context
• 6) Translating research evidence into policy for improving higher density living for human health and environmental sustainability, and, most recently,
• 7) Environmental hazards, planetary health and climate change adaptation and mitigation for higher density urban environments.

Irena has extensive experience undertaking qualitative research, particularly long-term ethnographic research, in various locations across the globe. She also has experience using quantitative methods and in analysing statistical data. She has published a total of 16 peer reviewed academic outputs to date, including articles in high ranked international journals and book chapters in edited volumes. In 2017, she received an ‘Outstanding’ award from Innovate UK for her contribution to knowledge exchange. Irena contributes to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching, postgraduate MSc and PhD supervision, and curriculum development. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and holds a PG Cert in Academic Practice in Higher Education.

Human responses to environmental hazards and disasters; Anthropology of disasters; Geography of disasters; Disaster vulnerabilities; Environmental sustainability and water security; Energy justice and policy; Indigenous and alternative models of development; Human-environmental relations in human security debates; Disaster management, planning, prevention and preparedness; capacity building, education and transformation for sustainability; Hazard risk and communication; Gender in disaster risk and response; Decision-making and tolerance of change in transformation for sustainable livelihoods and hazard risk reduction; Planetary health, hazard risk reduction, adaptation and mitigation of anthropogenic climate change in the urban built environment; Geographies of worry and emotion; Critical geography, Translational and policy relevant research; Ethnographic method; Transdisciplinary research; Multi and interdisciplinary research; Mixed method research. 

2018:  (UTS)

PhD Second Supervisor; 

MSc Dissertation Supervisor;

Undergraduate Dissertation Supervisor;

Lecturer/Co-Coordinator: Level 5 Postgraduate MSc module - Environment, Health and Sustainability (UTS) 

Lecturer/Coordinator: Level 3 Human Geographies of Environmental Hazards and Disasters

Lecturer/Supervisor: Level 4 Dissertation Module 

Lecturer: Level 1: Introduction to Geography A