IER is delighted to introduce its two new Research Fellows – Dr Emily Erickson and Dr Katharina Sarter. Both joined IER this month.

Prior to joining IER, Dr Emily Erickson was an Assistant Professor of Urban Planning at Alabama A&M University where she taught in the graduate and undergraduate planning programs. While in Alabama, Emily carried out a survey of workplace experiences, job quality, and racial equity in manufacturing facilities located in the American South.

Emily earned a PhD in Urban Planning from the University of California, Los Angeles, where she worked on several projects examining job quality and workplace equity among immigrant and low-wage workers. Her doctoral thesis examined civic engagement among undocumented Americans and her masters thesis analysed local laws seeking to regulate informal immigrant labour.

Dr Eva Katharina Sarter is a political scientist with expertise in public policies relating to employment, regulation of labour, public services, and comparative research. Katharina’s recent and current research focuses on the use of public procurement as a tool for the regulation of labour domestically as well as in international supply chains and as a lever to promote social policy goals.

Katharina is currently part of the ESRC funded project ‘”Buying Social Justice” through procurement: An examination of the use of public procurement for advancing employment equality in UK construction’.

Before joining IER, Katharina worked in Germany, Scotland, and Wales.