Dr Emily Lau

Emily Lau is a lecturer in Philanthropic Studies and a post-doctoral researcher working on Dr Alison Body’s ESRC project looking at Philanthropic Citizenship and Primary School Children. Emily’s PhD was an ethnography exploring the gendered experience of school-based social action. Emily has co-authored numerous research articles and reports with Dr Body particularly in relation to children, young people, giving and education. Her research interests are the ways children and young people are engaged in giving, volunteering and social action through educational experiences of citizenship and moral education. Emily is also interested in social inequalities and the way children and young people’s experiences can be determined by gender, class and race. Having worked for non-profits and charities overseas she is interested in the development of civil society and social movements globally.
Previously Emily was a Senior Lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church looking at the relationship between education and the third sector. She also has international teaching experience and worked for six years at Envision, a citizenship education charity, whose mission it was to work with young people in their communities by empowering them to tackle real-life social problems. Specialising in building partnerships between schools, colleges and businesses, Emily led many large-scale projects youth social action. This work involved creating and designing projects, as well as writing bids and reporting and seeking match funding opportunities from the Big Lottery, Children in Need and corporate trusts.
Emily is also the Chair of Trustees for charity Food Friends, a meal sharing initiative aiming to reduce social isolation, poverty and food waste. 

Children, young people, philanthropy, giving, social inequality, gender, race, class, civil society, global  

Postgraduate

Senior Fellow - HEA