Dr Tracey Coates
- Faculty of Engineering, Computing and the Environment
- Department of Geography, Geology and the Environment
- School of Built Environment and Geography
- Penrhyn Road
- Cyber, Engineering and Digital Technologies
Senior lecturer in Human Geography
About
I am a Human Geographer with over 20 years of experience exploring disasters, emergencies, and hazard management through qualitative research methods. My primary research theme focuses on community resilience. Taking a critical approach to the contested definitions of both 'community' and 'resilience', my work interrogates how these concepts are operationalised across diverse real-world settings.
By applying participatory and collaborative frameworks, my research bridges the gap between theory, the lived experiences of those subject to disasters, and the practicalities of risk management policy. I actively collaborate across disciplines with academics, practitioners, policymakers, and community partners to deliver theoretically informed, inclusive, and practical research solutions.
I am currently leading and contributing to interdisciplinary, inclusion-focused research collaborations structured around three interrelated themes:
- The VCFS in Civil Contingencies: Supporting, promoting, and advancing the vital role that the voluntary, community, and faith sector plays in building local resilience to UK civil contingency risks.
- Youth Empowerment in Science: Engaging and empowering young people from underrepresented communities in the environmental sciences. (Project: APP90888: NERC OUTE26 Mapping Futures 2: Reframing Environmental Science Pathways in Further Education).
- Vulnerability Mapping: Operationalising multi-faceted vulnerability frameworks to map the complex intersections of individual, systemic, digital, and environmental factors in emergency planning.
Teaching across undergraduate and postgraduate courses, my main areas relate to disaster risk reduction (DRR), emergency management and participatory approaches to environmental challenges. We explore everything from the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction to local community responses to hazards. I am also supervising PhD projects related to community resilience in a number of settings.
View my profile pages on ResearchGate and Academia for more information.
Qualifications
- Fellow of the HEA
- Fellow of the RGS
- PhD ‘The Conscious Community: Belonging, identities and networks in local communities' response to flooding'
- Postgraduate Certificate in Research Methods
- MSc Geography, Health and Environment
- BSc (Hons) Environmental Science