Dr Louise Elstow

Louise is a Research Associate in the Engineering Department at Cambridge University. She is part of the Life Resystal project, a European Commission-funded project which aims to support infrastructure adaptation within the European healthcare sector. Her deliverables focus ‘procurement for adaptation’ principles, an inventory of healthcare adaptation cases and how the wider policy landscape supports or hinders local adaptation in healthcare facilities.

Louise also works independently as a disaster and crisis management consultant. Through this work she has experience across multiple sectors (transport, health, utilities, emergency services, local government), helping them improve their operational plans, training and exercising to respond to and recover from emergencies and disasters. This has involved work preparing for or responding to the London 2012 Olympics, the Grenfell Fire, COVID-19, Rail Incident Care Teams and the Rail Resilience Project. This strand of her career at Harrow Council and Camden Council in London working as an Emergency Planning Officer. She is currently working on with London Resilience Unit at the GLA (Greater London Authority) to develop their response to heatwaves in the capital, and also with the Rail Delivery Group on the response to stranded passenger incidents.

Louise gained her PhD in Sociology from Lancaster University in 2023. Her thesis “Getting the Measure of It: Radiation Knowledge Construction in Japan since 2011” uses concepts from Science and Technology Studies (STS) to examine the making and use of scientific information about radiation following the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan. Her interest in nuclear emergency management stems from time working at Sellafield nuclear installation following the Fukushima disaster. Louise’s research interests include the translation of scientific and technical advice into decision-making, and the construction and use of data in knowledge-making entities, as well as contamination and CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear) events, disaster management, societal resilience, diversity in emergency management and climate adaptation more broadly.

Louise holds an MSc in Risk, Crisis and Disaster Management, from Leicester University, as well as a BSc in German, Swedish and Economics from the University of Surrey.

Dr Louise Elstow works with Dr Kristen MacAskill