Emma Cooke

Dr Emma Cooke is a sociologist and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The University of Queensland’s Child Health Research Centre (CHRC), affiliated with the Queensland Brain Institute. Her work focuses on the lived experiences of children, families, and educators, particularly around sleep, neurodisability, gender, and wellbeing. She is part of the Kids Sleep Research Group and the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Digital Child. Her research integrates qualitative methodologies including thematic analysis, discourse analysis, and creative practices like DRAW (Departing Radically in Academic Writing).

Dr Cooke holds a PhD from the Institute for Social Science Research (ISSR), where she developed a crystallization framework to explore children’s rights and relaxation experiences in early childhood education. Her current projects include studying families with children who have neurodisabilities and sleep difficulties, as well as evaluating technology use in bedtime routines for neurodivergent children. She has contributed to major initiatives like the Queensland KindyLinQ Pilot Program evaluation and authored works on food scarcity in disadvantaged childcare settings.

Her interdisciplinary research emphasizes marginalized voices, including children’s perspectives and caregiver experiences. Methodological innovations include graphic elicitation interviews and discarded data analysis. She actively engages in knowledge translation to bridge academic and practical applications of her findings in early childhood education and healthcare settings.