Professor Simone Abram

• Professor of Anthropology and DEI Co-Director in the Durham Energy Institute Department of Anthropology, Durham University
• Email: simone.abram@durham.ac.uk
• Keynote Speaker and Science Board member

Professor Simone Abram directs the Masters in Energy and Society and Durham University, and is a co-Director of the Durham Energy Institute. From 2016 to 2021, she is also working as a researcher at the National Centre for Energy Systems Integration (CESI), a £5m 5-year, 5-university research centre. Simone's role in CESI is to have a social-science input into integrated energy modelling and to bring an STS (Science, Technology, Society) approach to energy systems integration, this entails bringing anthropological methods and perspectives to the process and conceptualisation of energy modelling, paying attention to the broader societal and ethical issues that may arise out of, or as a consequence of systems-modelling.

From 2016 to 2019, Simone has been responsible for a European project on People-centred Development Approaches in Practical and Learning Environments (PEOPLE), funded through the Erasmus+ programme. With Professor Sandra Bell and Dr Maria Salaru, we will work with students in collaboration with a telecare company on the design of their products and services. 

Simone recently helped to found a new European network on energy anthropology under the auspices of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA). 

She has also recently co-founded a new international network on Energy Ethics, with colleagues at the Utrecht Ethics Institute, and at Eindhoven and Karlsruhe technical universities.

In addition, she is a member of the EASA Future Anthropology Network, and series editor of the Berghahn Public and Applied Anthropology series, with Prof Sarah Pink.