
Dr Susan Venn
Academic and research departments
Department of Sociology, Centre for Environment and Sustainability.About
Biography
Biography
Research Fellow, Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP), Department of Sociology and Centre for Environmental Sustainability, University of Surrey,Guildford, Surrey, GU2 7XH, UK
Susan is currently a member of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP) a five year collaborative project funded by the ESRC. Susan is working within Theme S1 which explores the social and psychological dimensions of prosperity - working with households and individuals in order to understand how people negotiate their aspirations for the good life.
Previously Susan was a researcher within the DEMAND Centre based in the Department of Geography at University College London. Her work there involved exploring how patterns of post-retirement mobility are evolving, and the implications this might have for energy demand in the future, given the increasingly ageing population.
Susan was also a researcher within the Sustainable Lifestyles Research Group (SLRG), based at the University of Surrey, where she undertook research which explored the possibility for lifecourse transitions, that is having a baby or retiring, to offer opportunities to encourage people to move towards more sustainable lifestyles.
Previous research has focused on the social context of sleep across the lifecourse, including a four year, multi council funded collaborative research project on sleep in later life (SomnIA, 2006-2010), the negotiation of sleep amongst couples (ESRC http://www.esrc.ac.uk/my-esrc/grants/RES-000-23-0268/read) and perceptions of sleep amongst teenagers.
Susan completed her MSc (Distinction) in Social Research in 2004 and her PhD in March 2011.
Susan is Secretary of the Awards Panel for the BSG Averil Osborn Award for Participatory Research, part of the British Society of Gerontology.
ResearchResearch interests
Susan's research interests focus on contextual understandings of sustainable prosperity, what it means to live in a sustainable way in different circumstances, locations, and at varying points across the lifecourse. Her work has cut across all stages of the lifecourse, from young children through to much later life and she is particularly interested in how generations interact.
Research projects
Exploring the contested and situated nature of ordinary people’s visions of the good life and the role of materialism in delivering (and hindering) a sense of prosperity.
Research interests
Susan's research interests focus on contextual understandings of sustainable prosperity, what it means to live in a sustainable way in different circumstances, locations, and at varying points across the lifecourse. Her work has cut across all stages of the lifecourse, from young children through to much later life and she is particularly interested in how generations interact.