معرفی
Dr Alexandra ‘Ally’ Gormally-Sutton is Senior Lecturer in Subsurface and Society at Lancaster University’s Lancaster Environment Centre (LEC). She is a human geographer whose work bridges energy geographies, political geology and sustainability transitions, with an emerging focus on subsurface governance and speculative geologies. Ally leads or co-leads several multi-million-pound projects funded by EPSRC, ESRC and NERC, sits on the Management Board of the Supergen Energy Storage Network+, and is Project Lead for the NERC-funded Inclusive Natural Environment Futures initiative.
Education: Ally completed her interdisciplinary PhD in 2013, funded by the UK Energy Research Centre, examining renewable energy potential in upland communities.
Research interests: Her research interrogates the relationship between social processes and earth systems, especially the underground. Core themes include:
- Energy geographies and community energy
- Subsurface governance, pore-space politics and NetZero transitions
- Political geology, speculative volcanology and extreme energy futures
- Thermal comfort, digital technologies and invisible energy policies
- EDI in higher education and environmental disciplines
Across 18 peer-reviewed outputs since 2011, her publications chart a trajectory from regional renewable resource assessments to critical interrogations of energy governance and the societal dimensions of the subsurface. Recent work (2022-2025) centres on social housing retrofits, groundwater governance in South Africa, post-pandemic coastal experiences, and thermal comfort policies in universities.
Scientific awards & honours:
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)
- Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS-IBG)
Doctoral supervision & grants: Ally supervises 3 current PhD students (Rachael Glassey, Kathy New, Lydia Parsons) and has successfully completed 4 PhDs since 2019. She has been PI or Co-I on grants totalling >£2 million, including:
- EPSRC CREDS £1.6M (Co-I)
- ESRC-CASE studentship £75k (PI)
- NERC Opening Up The Environment 2025/26 (PI)
- EPSRC Supergen Energy Storage Network+ (Co-I 2019-2023)
Labs, teams & outreach: As LEC’s academic lead for Athena SWAN (Silver award 2023), Ally champions equity, diversity and inclusion in Geography and Environmental Science, curating the LEC Voices blog series and leading initiatives to widen participation among minority ethnic students in the natural environment sector.
