Originally trained as a Geographer, Susan Halford is Professor of Sociology and has worked across the social and engineering sciences for the past 15 years. At the University of Bristol she is co-Director of the ESRC Centre for Sociodigital Futures and was formerly founding co-Director of the Bristol Digital Futures Institute (2019-2022), and founding Director of the Web Science Institute at the University of Southampton (2012-2018)

Susan's present research focusses on the practices and politics of digital data, artefacts and expertise. She has made key interventions on the hybrid workspace, digital inequality, the semantic web, social media analytics, big data practices and - most recently - sociodigital futures. She is also well-known for her work as an organizational sociologist, in which she has explored the dynamics of organizational change with particular reference to gender identities, to ageing and - linking both - to the intrasectionalities of digital technologies in everyday practice across diverse workplaces. 

Susan has been a Visiting Professor at the Australian National University and Federico II, University of Naples. She has sat on various of strategic and advisory boards, most recently the EPSRC ICT Strategic Advisory Team, the UK Biobank Ethics Advisory Group and the ESRC New and Emerging Forms of Data Strategic Advisory Group. Susan was President of the British Sociological Association 2018-21.