Dr Emma Kirby (she/her) is a Professor of Sociology and leader of The Care Lab in the School of Social Sciences. She is also the Associate Dean Societal Impact, Equity & Engagement for the Faculty of Arts, Design & Architecture (ADA), and Chairs the faculty’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Committee. She has previously held roles as a UNSW Scientia Fellow and an Australian Research Council DECRA in the Centre for Social Research in Health. She is interested in the sociology of health, illness, and care, and her research draws on a range of case studies to provide a critical sociological analysis of advanced illness and end of life care, mapping its character and significance. Her program of research comprises a series of projects focused on relationships in/and health care, health care practice, diversity and social justice.

Her work focuses on empirically and theoretically interrogating the character of illness and care as evolving, contingent and situated phenomena, reflective of (and reflecting) the emerging and enduring dynamics of contemporary cultural and social life. Whether exploring the new dynamics of families, the evolving character of chronicity, the constraints and opportunities for care and carers, or the quickly shifting experience of death and dying, this work is embedded in broader questions such as: what is care, by whom is care provided, and to what end? These questions (and complex answers) move across many stakeholders (e.g. doctors, nurses, families, patients, friends) to discover the inter-subjective production of contemporary caring relations, as evident across time, space and institutional context.

Her work has expanded to the nexus of professional practice, benevolence, risk and responsibility, where she has published on antimicrobial resistance in Australia to explore why antibiotic use continues to elude best-practice guidelines. This area of focus includes offering key insight into the ways by which hospital doctors balance immediate clinical risks, professional reputation, and longer-term population consequences, and aims to provide fresh perspectives on clinical and managerial priorities within health care.

Further information on Emma is available on her institutional profile.

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