About

Elizabeth Humphrys

I am a political economist and the Head of Discipline of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS). I’m interested in the impact of economic crisis and climate change on workers, and how workplaces can be made safer and more equitable. I take a multidisciplinary approach — drawing on sociology and history — to develop policy and strategies for social change. My first book, How Labour Built Neoliberalism, was described in the Sydney Review of Books as a ‘tremendously important’ contribution to understanding economic change in Australia’s recent past. A member of the UTS Climate, Society and Environment Research Centre (C-SERC), I lead the centre’s research on climate change impacts for workers.

My current and recent projects investigate:

— The impact of climate change on workers, such as increasing heat and bushfire smoke, and the politics of workplace adaptation to global warming (Too Hot to Work).

— An interdisciplinary project examining the experiences of hi-vis workers and the historical and social context of hi-vis garments.

— The impact of neoliberalism in Australia.

— An investigation of the history and memorialisation of the West Gate Bridge disaster, which killed 35 construction workers in 1970 (The West Gate Project).

— The experiences of disabled academics in universities.

I am an editor of Social Movement Studies, an Associate Editor of Economic and Labour Relations Review, and an Associate of the Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute. I was the inaugural Dr A M Hertzberg fellow at the State Library of NSW in 2019, and in 2013 held a WZB/Sydney Fellowship at the WZB Social Science Research Centre Berlin.

Prior to being an academic I worked in research and policy for a number of universities and non-government organisations, as an advisor to a member of parliament, and as an investigator for the NSW Ombudsman.