Dr Adam Lucas
Adam’s published research encompasses the history and sociology of science and technology, and the political economy of climate change and energy policy from a broadly historical and sociological perspective. His current research is focused on two related fields of interest: the energy transition from ‘organic’ to ‘mineral-based’ fuel use in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and obstacles to and enablers of a renewable energy transition and deep decarbonisation in the twenty-first century. Most recently, he has undertaken research and published with colleagues at Australian universities on the reform of university governance and finances as part of Academics for Public Universities and the new umbrella organization, Public Universities Australia.
Research Keywords
climate change and energy policy; history and sociology of technology; political economy of institutions; social and economic history
Biography
Adam Lucas is a senior lecturer in science and technology studies and environmental humanities at the University of Wollongong. Before taking up his current position at the University of Wollongong in March 2008, Adam undertook ten years of postgraduate study at the University of New South Wales, completing a Master of Science and Society in 1994, a Master of Arts (Hons 1st Class) in 1997, and a doctorate in the history and philosophy of science in 2003. Since the mid-1990s, Adam has taught at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney University, the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the University of Wollongong (UOW), including HPS and STS subjects at UNSW, Sydney and UOW, and engineering practice subjects at UNSW, UTS and UOW.
Between 2002 and 2008, he worked as a policy analyst in the NSW Government, primarily in The Cabinet Office of former NSW Premier, Bob Carr, in the Aboriginal Affairs portfolio, but also in the Department of State and Regional Development and Housing NSW.
Adam is also series editor for Brill’s ‘Technology and Change in History’ and President of the Australasian Association for the History, Philosophy and Social Studies of Science (AAHPSSS). He has been a guest researcher in the Science Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex (2011 & 2018), the Max Planck Institute the History of Science in Berlin (2016), the Department for the History of Science at the University of Oklahoma (2008 & 2018), the Science Studies Unit at the University of Edinburgh (2011), and the College of Social Sciences at Michigan Technological University (2018).