Catherine Wong
Catherine Wong
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam, Assistant Professor Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam
m.l.wong@uva.nl
Dr Catherine Wong is a sociologist specialising in the risk perception-action gap. She’s the principal investigator for: “Public perceptions and uptake of expert (re)framings of nuclear energy in the context of climate change: A comparative study of China and “the world” based on Twitter and Weibo data” and “Inoculation against fake news? An experiment using fake news game in the context of COVID-19”.
Her research focuses on how cultural, ideological and social network factors influence risk perception and risk governance. Her book, Energy, Risk and Governance, published by Palgrave and Macmillan in 2018 unpacked the role of nationalism, post-colonial legacies and modernisation aspirations in shaping risk perceptions of nuclear energy in India despite the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Catherine has also published extensively on policy and industry elite risk perceptions; climate change and energy futures; and socio-ecological transitions. Her current research expands on these topics in the areas of sustainable finance and systemic risk. In 2019, Catherine received the prestigious Directorate Fellowship from the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) in Potsdam (Germany) to work on systemic risk in green finance.
Catherine received her PhD from the Australian National University (ANU) and a Masters in Global Studies from the University of Freiburg in Germany. Prior to joining IPUR, she held research positions at James Cook University (Australia) and the University of Luxembourg (Luxembourg). Catherine also spent time in the private sector as a business planning analyst at Hewlett Packard in Ireland and a journalist for The Business Times and The Straits Times in Singapore.
