Research Interests

Ally often takes an interdisciplinary approach in her research, working collaboratively with other disciplines. This began during her doctoral research which she completed in 2013 and was funded by a competitively won studentship from the UK Energy Research Centre .The research took an interdisciplinary approach to assessing renewable energy potential in upland communities.

Since then she has worked collaboratively with geoscientists, engineers and computer scientists and continues to persue collaborations across the disciplines and with wider stakeholders.

Ally has been publishing her research since 2011 in peer-reviewed journals and conferences on topics including subsurface governance, speculative geology, energy demand, invisible energy policies, community energy and pedagogic work on teaching sustainability in HE. She was also an invited contributor to The Royal Society's Report (2023) on Long Term Energy Storage; Chapter 5 Non-Chemical and Thermal Energy Storage and to the Supergen Energy Storage Network+ Report (2025) on Energy Storage: gaps and opportunity analysis

Current Teaching

Ally mainly teaches on LEC's UG Geography programme including:

• LEC 227 'Geosocial Spaces' which explores society's relationship with earth processes (convenor)
• LEC 202 'Being a Geographer; Issues, ethics and skills' (convenor)
• LEC 101 'Global Environmental Challenges' (contributor)

In addition to this, she has a number of both UG and PG dissertation students exploring topics such as the use of subterranean spaces in cities, the role of social media in natural hazard response, Governance of groundwater in the UK, the Value of geology in settlement patterns and Community Energy, amongst others.

PhD Students:

Ongoing

• Rachael Glassey - Move fast and break things?: Balancing pace and public support in the transition to clean power in the North of England. Start Oct 2025.
• Kathy New - Exploring adaptive thermal comfort in non-domestic buildings. Kathy has published a number of peer-reviewed papers and reports which you can find here.

Completed

• Jack Hemingway Thesis 'Shale Gas in South Africa: Energy Discourse and the Making and Governing of Resources'. This was in collaboration with BGS and funded through the ESRC NWSSDTP. Read Jack's blog post for more info. Completed 2024.
• Joseph Earl - 'Coastwatchers:A citizen observatory for mitigation of coastal hazards'. Funded through a Faculty of Science and Technology Studentship award. Read Joseph's article for The Conversation. Completed 2024.
• Hannah Charles - 'Social housing challenges in the low-carbon transformation to Net Zero'. Hannah is based at The University of Manchester and co-supervised by Prof Stefan Bouzarovski and Dr Rob Bellamy. Funded through the ESRC NWSSDTP, CASE partner is OneManchester. Read her blog piece on the importance of mapping the shift to NetZero. Completed 2025.

Masters by Research students:

• Mike Lusty, looking at the role of citizen science in coastal management (completed, 2019).
• Stephen King, exploring the underlying tensions in delivering long-term collaborations for clean and sustianable growth (completed, 2021).

External Roles

External Examiner for Liverpool John Moore's University (2024-ongoing)

ESRC academic representative on UKERC's Funders Panel 2019-2023

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA)

Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society (RGS-IBG)

Previously Secretary of the RGS-IBG Energy Geographies Research Group (2018-2020) http://www.energygeographies.org @EnergyGeography

Professional Role

Ally is LEC's academic lead for Athena SWAN. LEC were awarded a Silver Award in Autumn 2023, for more information about our approach to Athena SWAN see here.

Ally is passionate about EDI in HE and about understanding the experinces and barriers posed to minority groups in accessing a HE education, particulaly in Geography and Earth and Environmental Science subjects (GEES). As part of this work, Ally leads on a blog series called LEC Voices which aims to share a diverse range of experinces from staff and students across LEC.

Ally was previsouly Senior Admissions Tutor for LEC's UG Geography degree programmes. For more information about our degrees see here.

Research Grants

• EPSRC (CREDS) - End Use Energy Demand Technology 2. (Award to LU £1.6M) Title: Reducing End Use Energy Demand in Commercial Settings Through Digital Innovation. PI: Prof Adrian Friday. 2020-2024.
• BGS (£3k) PI:'Underground futures/Conflicts - Scoping Project' Jan-March 2020
• EPSRC Supergen Energy Storage Network + (Co-I) 2019-2023
• ESRC-CASE Studentship (£75k) PI:'Resilience of Groundwater governance in Southern Africa' 2018-2023
• FST Research Grant (£2.5k) PI: 'Scoping Project - Energy from Magma; The Re-Imagination of Subsurface Opportunities' Jan-July 2018
• LEC-BGS PI:'Society and Subsurface' collaboration 2016-2019