Tracey Crosbie is a Professor of Sustainability in the Built Environment in the School of Social Science Humanities and law  at Teesside University She is a trans-disciplinary academic with degrees in the social and technical sciences. Tracey has been involved in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research associated with energy and sustainability in urban environments for more than 20 years. One of Tracey’s main roles is to facilitate multidisciplinary research across the university’s different schools.

Tracey has led successful research proposals and projects with over 80 different partners from industry academia and third sector organisations. These include large research institutes such as  the Technical Research Centre of Finland (VTT), SINTEF (Norway), Fraunhofer (Germany) and the Austrian Institute of Technology (AIT), large industrial partners such as Siemens, Mitsubishi and IBM, SME’s such as DuneWorks (Holland), NOBATEK (France) and Universities such as Uppsala University (Sweden) Ramon Llull University (Spain) and IITB Bombay (India). She has published with individuals from over 40 of the organisations she has worked with including those from UK Universities such as Durham, Newcastle, Manchester, De Montfort and Northumbria. She is  a visiting Professor at LPU in India  and has been involved in the annual Sustainable Places (SP) International Conference since 2013.

As is expected from a transdisciplinary academic her published work crosses disciplinary boundaries and can be found in journals associated with a wide number of disciplines including; urban studies, geography, ICTs, civil and electrical engineering, social policy and pedagogy. 

Tracey’s PhD was awarded by the University of Newcastle, School of Architecture Planning and Landscape (2004), her other qualifications include an MSc in IT awarded by Teesside University, a Postgraduate Certificate (PGc) in Social Welfare and Social Work awarded by the University of Northumbria and a BA (Hons) in Sociology and Social Policy (1995) awarded by the University of Durham

Tracey’s current research interests focus on the development of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research methodologies, sustainability policy and its implementation, urban development and smart cities and smart energy infrastructures.

Tracey  is an associate member of Fuse.  Currently She is the Principal Investigator (PI) of a research project funded under the British Academy’s 2019 GCRF Urban Infrastructures of Well-Being programme. The project is entitled “What is in a meter? Working towards efficient, socially inclusive and environmentally sensitive energy and water infrastructures in the Global South.”  She also leads the work in the REACT Horizon 2020 funded research and innovation project (2019-2022) at Teesside University. Within the project she leads a work package called “User context and socio-economic analysis.” This work seeks to understand how we can engage users in smart grids and demand response and identify the local socio economic impacts of local smart energy networks on small geographical islands.  

In the inteGRIDy Horizon 2020 project (2017-2020), she led a work package entitled “Standardization Analysis, Regulations and Privacy Policy,” that was successfully delivered to the commission in the first 12 months of the project. In the DR-BOB Horizon 2020 project (2017-2019), she led the work package related to dissemination as well as contributing to the approach taken in the evaluation of the projects pilots and the work on business modelling and the impact of current regulations and policy approaches on the potential for demand response.

Tracey managed the IDEAS FP7 funded EC project (2012-2015). She also led the design and implementation of the evaluation strategy for a Big Lottery funded community based project called One Planet Middlesbrough: Communities living sustainably which was delivered in 2017. In the SEMANCO project (2011- 2015), she led a work package entitled “Enabling scenarios for stakeholders”. In the IntUBE.(2008-2011) she was the lead researcher on the project team at Teesside University.

PhD supervision

Currently Tracey is involved in the supervision of three PhD students:

• Pierre Esser The traces of greenhouse gas emissions: Transformation of consumption behaviour in Germany
• Puvis Srinet Towards Sustainable Transport and logistics in Thailand
• Sm Najmul Hasan Environmental implications in the WTO; Ensuring environmental concerns are addressed in the WTO

Recent PhD completions in which Tracey was involved include

• Sean Williams (2021), Control Optimisation for Demand Response Systems
• Kennedy Amadasun (2021), Investigating the feasibility of integrating minimal mast structure in Telecommunications industry in Nigeria
• Alima Ogah (2021), Climate Change in Nigeria: Assessing Policy and Practice
• Ahmed Maher Fakhri Gailani (2021), Technologies regulatory frameworks and business models for the near future deployment of energy storage systems in electricity networks.
• Maher Abuhussain (2020) Developing a Framework for Knowledge Transfer Partnership in Technology-Intensive Infrastructure Projects in Saudi Arabia: