STAFF PROFILE
Associate Professor Yolande Strengers
Associate Professor Yolande Strengers is a Principal Research Fellow in the Centre for Urban Research, where she co-leads the Beyond Behaviour Change research program.
Yolande is an applied social scientist specialising in socio-technical relations with digital technologies, and their gendered and sustainability effects. At RMIT's Centre for Urban Research, she co-leads the Beyond Behaviour Research Program, which works with project partners to identify ways of intervening in practices to achieve sustainability outcomes and energy demand reductions. Her work is applied and interdisciplinary in focus, spanning the fields of sociology, geography, science and technology studies and human computer interaction design. Her projects investigate how smart, automated and digital technologies such as Telepresence, smart grids, smart homes, and air-conditioners are changing the ways we live and work.
Yolande's research is informed by theories of social practice, which understand everyday activity as consisting of socially-shared practices, like driving, heating, laundering or shopping. Her work has advanced understandings of this body of theory in the field of energy demand and sustainability. More recently, Yolande has been interested in the role of non-humans (pets and autonomous devices) in carrying out or participating in social practices. Her latest edited book with Cecily Maller (Social practices and dynamic non-humans, Palgrave MacMillan, in press 2018) contributes to understandings of human-technology and human-animal relationships in everyday life.
Yolande currently holds an ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) to investigate the automated smart home and its outcomes for energy demand reduction. Through this project, she is also exploring and writing about the gendered underpinnings and effects of smart home technologies.
Beyond Behaviour Change research program
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PhD (Social Science), RMIT University
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Masters (Social Science), RMIT University
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BArts (Deans Scholars Program), Monash University
- Maller, C.,Strengers, Y. (2018). Studying social practices and global practice change using scrapbooks as a cultural probe In: Area, 50, 66 - 73
- Nicholls, L.,Strengers, Y. (2018). Heatwaves, cooling and young children at home: integrating energy and health objectives In: Energy Research and Social Science, 39, 1 - 9
- Strengers, Y.,Nicholls, L. (2018). Aesthetic pleasures and gendered tech-work in the 21st-century smart home In: Media International Australia, 166, 70 - 80
- Tirado, S.,Nicholls, L.,Strengers, Y. (2018). Smart home technologies in everyday life: do they address key energy challenges in households? In: Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 31, 65 - 70
- Strengers, Y.,Maller, C. (2018). Dynamic non-humans in a changing world In: Social Practices and Dynamic Non-Humans: Nature, Materials and Technologies, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, United States
- Nicholls, L.,Strengers, Y.,Tirado, S. (2017). Smart home control: Exploring the potential for off-the-shelf enabling technologies in energy vulnerable and other households In: Energy Consumers Australia Melbourne, Australia
- Moore, T.,Nicholls, L.,Strengers, Y.,Maller, C.,Horne, R. (2017). Benefits and challenges of energy efficient social housing In: Energy Procedia, 121, 300 - 307
- Ingrid, R.,Hjorth, L.,Strengers, Y.,Balmford, W. (2017). Careful surveillance at play: Human-animal relations and mobile media in the home In: Refiguring Techniques in Digital Visual Research, Springer, London, UK
- Glover, A.,Strengers, Y.,Lewis, T. (2017). The unsustainability of academic aeromobility in Australian universities In: Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, 13, 1 - 12
- Nicholls, L.,McCann, H.,Strengers, Y.,Bosomworth, K. (2017). Heatwaves, Homes & Health: Why household vulnerability to extreme heat is an electricity policy issue In: Energy Consumers Australia Melbourne, Australia
- Our Grid: Concepts, strategies and relationships to engage energy consumers towards the Future Grid. Funded by: Energy Consumers Australia Grant 2018 from (2018 to 2019)
- Electricity pricing and managing heatwaves at home: mitigating health and financial risks for heat-vulnerable household consumers. Funded by: Energy Consumers Australia Grant 2016 Round 1 from (2016 to 2018)
- Smart home control: exploring the potential for enabling technologies in vulnerable and disengaged households. Funded by: Energy Consumers Australia Grant 2015 from (2016 to 2017)
- Automating the smart home: an investigation of automated cooling practices. Funded by: ARC Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) 2014 from (2015 to 2018)
- Changing demand: the flexibility of energy practices in larger households with dependent children. Funded by: Consumer Advocacy Panel Grant pre-2014 from (2014 to 2015)
6 PhD Current Supervisions