Conor Harrison

Associate Professor, Department of Geography and School of Earth, Ocean and Environment

PhD, Geography, University of North Carolina, 2014

My research examines the relationship between energy, society, and economy. My current research project broadly examines the U.S. electricity system as it transitions to more renewable forms of energy. I am particularly interested in how the financial industry is influencing the pace, location, and types of changes happening in the electricity sector. In addition, I am helping to head up new interdisciplinary research projects (with colleagues in the School of Law) examining regulation, energy insecurity, and energy labor in the southeastern U.S. My past research has traced the historical development of electricity supply systems and markets in the American South and the eastern Caribbean. This work focused on the interactions of an emerging networked infrastructure with contrasting ideas and methods of financing, governance, and ideologies of race in the American South between 1900 and 1980. My work has been published in journals including the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Environment and Planning E, Geoforum, and Energy Research and Social Science.