Karen Lucas

Dr Karen Lucas is Professor of Human Geography and Director of Research in the Department of Geography within the School of Environment, Education and Development (SEED) and leads the Transport and Mobilities research theme for the Manchester Urban Institute at The University of Manchester. She has 25+ years’ experience of delivering social research into practice in transport, employing a variety of mixed methods approaches to issues of mobility, accessibility and social justice.

Karen is a world-leading expert on transport and social justice in the Global North and South and is currently devising a new integrated methodology for the social assessment of road projects for National Highways. She previously undertook similar assessments of the A465 bypass project for the Welsh Government and of the Lower Thames Crossing project for the Department of Transport. She is director of the International Network for Transport and Accessibility in Low Income Communities (INTALInC)., which is a global network of academics, policymakers, NGOs and frontline agencies to promote transport justice in Global South cities.

Karen also researches issue of energy poverty and environmental justice in the UK context, currently leading the High-End Energy Consumers project https://www.creds.ac.uk/high-energy-consumers/ for the Centre for Research of Energy Demand Systems (CREDS), which is funded by UK Research and Innovation.

She is co-chair of NECTAR Cluster 7: Social and Health Impacts of Transport and a member of the Editorial Boards for the Journal of Transport Geography, Springer's Transportation journal and Urban Book Series.