Penny Harvey

Penny is Professor of Social Anthropology in the School of Social Sciences. She is a Fellow of the British Academy, and of the Academy of Europe, and an elected member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters. She is Deputy Chair of the UK Government Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM), an arm’s length body that offers independent advice and scrutiny on the formation and delivery of nuclear waste policies.  This work builds on previous long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Peru on infrastructures, technology, expertise and the modern state. Her interest in the politics of knowledge, materiality and representation shapes her current writing on time, radioactive wastes, rocks and the hosting relations anticipated by the UK policy for the siting of a geological disposal facility. Read more about Penny

See publications from The Beam team

A collaboration between The University of Manchester and National Nuclear Laboratory, this project will design what is known as a ‘hybrid forum’.

Led by The University of Manchester, this project addresses current debates in the decommissioning of nuclear facilities and storage of nuclear waste in the UK.

Led by The University of Manchester, this project explores social and cultural processes of technological innovation in decommissioning the Sellafield nuclear site.

Meet Penny Harvey, Professor of Social Anthropology at The University of Manchester and co-founder of The Beam.