Dick Hobbs will take up the Chair in Criminology at Essex and along with Pete Fussey will further develop teaching and research activity in this area. Dick is currently Professor of Sociology at LSE and has research interests in professional and organised crime, violence, and the political economy of crime. He is also interested in ethnographic work and working class entrepreneurship and the night-time economy.

Pete Fussey will be joining the Department as Senior Lecturer in Criminology. Pete comes to us from the Law department at the University of East London. His research areas include surveillance and security, and organised crime and the informal economy. Pete is currently involved in a research projects on security and the Olympics, on organised crime in London and on responses to terrorism in the UK..

Linsey McGoey will take up a Lectureship in Sociology. Linsey is currently Research Fellow at the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society at the Saïd Business School in Oxford. Her research explores the politics and epistemology of strategic ignorance in negotiating expertise, avoiding liability and commanding resources in political and organisational life. Her work on the politics and epistemology of strategic ignorance is situated within a larger concern with economic governance, social justice and the ontology of technological failure.

Michael Bailey will take up the Lectureship in Media and Communications. Michael is coming to Essex from Leeds Metropolitan University, where he is currently Senior Lecturer in Media and Cultural Analysis. Michael’s main research interests are media history, historical sociology and social theory. He is also interested in New Left politics, alternative media and social movements, British cultural studies and media policy..