Planetary Praxis is an interdisciplinary research group that investigates social life, technology and the planetary through practice-based research.
Director of the Planetary Praxis research group
Jennifer Gabrys is Chair in Media, Culture and Environment in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. She leads the Planetary Praxis research group, and is Principal Investigator on the ERC-funded project, Smart Forests: Transforming Environments into Social-Political Technologies. She also leads the Citizen Sense and AirKit projects, which have both received funding from the ERC.
Smart Forests Project Administrator
Yvonne Martin-Portugues is the Project Administrator for the Smart Forests project.
PhD Student in Sociology
Josephine Seah is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. She is interested in smart cities, digital sociology, and algorithmic cultures. Her doctoral research examines how “smart citizens” are constructed in the creation of smart cities, and how city residents make meaning out of data-driven technologies and participate in the projects of their smart cities.
PhD Student in Sociology
El No is a PhD student in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. Informed by her time working on the design side of data analytics software, she is interested in how different groups of people make sense of, collaborate with, or reappropriate digital technologies.
Smart Forests Postdoctoral Research Associate
Michelle Westerlaken is a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the Smart Forests project in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. She has a PhD in Interaction Design from Malmö University in Sweden. As an interdisciplinary researcher and designer her work builds on posthumanism, feminist technoscience, critical animal studies, and decolonial theory to investigate possibilities for more sustainable contributions on a planet in a state of mass extinction.
Smart Forests Postdoctoral Research Associate
Trishant is a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Smart Forests project in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. He is a conservation geographer with a decade-long experience and interest in the socio-politics and geographies of wildlife conservation. His research focuses on the rising discourse of conservation militarisation, links between the illegal wildlife trade and armed conflicts, and conservation practice in violent environments.
Smart Forests Research Assistant
Katy Lewis Hood is a Research Assistant on the Smart Forests project in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. Their recently completed PhD thesis, undertaken in English and Geography at Queen Mary University of London, offers an interdisciplinary approach to Black and Indigenous poetic and spatial practices that respond to watery environments transformed by colonialism, slavery, and extractive capitalism in Turtle Island/North America, the Caribbean and Pacific islands, and configure forms of socio-ecological relating otherwise.
PhD Student in Artificial Intelligence for Environmental Risk | Affiliated Smart Forests Researcher
Joycelyn Longdon is a PhD student on the Artificial Intelligence For Environmental Risk (AI4ER) MRes + PhD at Cambridge University. Her work explores the intersection of machine learning, forest ecology and Indigenous knowledge. She is also the founder of ClimateInColour, an education platform and community at the intersection of climate science and social justice making climate conversations more accessible and diverse.
PhD Student in Artificial Intelligence for Environmental Risk | Affiliated Planetary Praxis Researcher
Sofija Stefanović is a PhD student at the Centre for Doctoral Training in Artificial Intelligence For Environmental Risk (AI4ER) at Cambridge University. Her work aims to co-develop data science tools for environmental monitoring with communities resisting mining, particularly in the context of intensified mining for “clean technologies.”
Postdoctoral Research Associate
Yuti Ariani Fatimah is a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the Smart Forests project in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. She has a PhD in science and technology studies from Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands where she investigated the theoretical and practical aspects of power and agency in Indonesian biofuel projects. Yuti is an interdisciplinary scholar with training in mathematics, development studies, and innovation science, and experience with groups involved with topics ranging from smart cities to ecologies.
PhD Student in Sociology | Citizen Sense and Citizen Data Research Assistant
Anna Verena Eireiner is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge. In her research, she explores the governance of emerging technologies, DIY practices, and open science. She co-leads the Science and Technology Studies Research Cluster in the Department of Sociology.
AirKit and Citizen Sense Postdoctoral Researcher and Consultant
Joanne Armitage was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at Cambridge University working on the AirKit project, which she continues to contribute to as a consultant collaborator. As a practice-based researcher Joanne’s work brings together computational practices, sound and feminist STS.
Smart Forests Postdoctoral Research Associate
Dr Danilo Urzedo was a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the Smart Forests project in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge from 2021-22. In 2022, he begins a researcher position with CSIRO in Australia. Originally hailing from Brazil, Danilo draws on multiple research perspectives from political ecology and environmental justice to investigate the interplay between tropical forest conservation and rural development. He is particularly concerned with understanding how emerging digital practices are transforming community participation to stop deforestation and upscale forest restoration actions in tropical regions.
Smart Forests Postdoctoral Research Associate
Max Ritts was a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the Smart Forests project in the Department of Sociology at the University of Cambridge from 2021-22. He is an environmental geographer, having completed his PhD at the Department of Geography, University of British Columbia (UBC) in 2018. His work operates at the intersection of political ecology, sound studies, and critical Indigenous studies.
AirKit and Citizen Sense Postdoctoral Researcher
Sachit Mahajan was a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the AirKit Project of Citizen Sense in the Department of Sociology at Cambridge. His research interests lie in the area of Internet of Things and air quality sensing, especially focusing on participatory sensing systems that emphasize collaboration with citizens and local communities. He is currently working as a Postdoctoral Scientist and Lecturer at the Professorship of Computational Social Science (COSS), ETH Zurich.
Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow
Michiel Van Oudheusden was a Marie Skłodowska-Curie research fellow at the University of Cambridge working at the intersections of environmental sociology, policy making and digital participation. His research project GRACE with Jennifer Gabrys considered how grassroots citizen scientists in three world regions (East Asia, Western Europe, Central Africa) mobilize new data devices and technologies to tackle environmental threats; and how formal institutions respond to citizen-driven environmental data practices.