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Staff profile

Overview

Jay Sinclair

Research Postgraduate (PhD)

Affiliations
Affiliation
Research Postgraduate (PhD) in the Department of Geography
Fellow of the Institute for Medical Humanities

Biography

Kia ora! Nō Aotearoa ahau, ko Jay tōku ingoa. 

My name is Jay and I am from Aotearoa | New Zealand. 

I am a human geographer interested in the intersection of toxicity studies, environmental health justice, industry, and the endocrine/hormonal. My work currently operates in three stands. 

Empirical

The empirical focus of my PhD is researching the lived experience of industrial pollution in Teesside, one of the most heavily industrialised areas of the UK. I am interested in how indsutrial environments become embodied and how people experience, adapt, become ambivalent, or contest indsutrial disturbances such as noises, smells, vibrations, and air pollution in their daily lives. 

Political 

My empirical work on the lived experiene of pollution in Teesside demands a political response. Pollution is an expansive and multi-faceted issue, but I have chosen to focus on air quality as a way to make visible and politicise environmental health justice issues in Teesside. To do this, I am currently running an air quality monitoring project in collaboration with Stop Incineration North East (SINE) where we seek to understand how we can know toxicity when it is often diffuse and invisible, and how this relates to community experience. 

Theoretical 

My theoretical interests are currently articulating around the concept of the endocrine. Starting from an interest in endocrine disrupting chemicals, I have developed an 'endocrine ecologies' theoretical framework in response to the empirical thread which asks how industrial environments become embodied. The endocrine provides a specific mechanism here, as it allows us to trace how industrial disturbances such as light, sound, smell, etc, modulate the body's hormonal capacities, such as the ability to sleep, rest, socialise, metabolise, and other endocrine-relevant processes. 

Alongside being a postgraduate researcher in the geography department, I currently hold a variety of academic roles, including: 

  • Co-founding and co-convening the 'Queer and Trans Geographies' thematic group in the Geography Department at Durham University. 
  • 2025/26 Durham Geography PGR social convenor 
  • 2025/26 co-convenor of the Durham Geography PGR Work in Progress (WIP) meetings 
  • 2025/26 co-PGR rep of the Space, Sexualities, and Queer Research Group (SSQRG) 
  • Reviewer for The Local Environment journal and Hypatia 

I am a grateful recipent of a variety of grants and awards. Selected examples incude: 

  • RGS-IGB Frederick Soddy Award, 2026 
  • RGS-IGB Postgraduate Research Award, 2026 
  • Pride in Stem small grants winner, 2026
  • Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness travel grant, 2026 
  • Association for Industrial Archeology travel grant, 2025
  • Norman Richardson PGR Research Fund, Ustinov College, 2026

 

 

Research interests

  • From a cultural geographies perspective, I am interested in:
  • Endocrine geographies
  • Chemical geographies
  • Bodily geographies
  • Feminist, queer, and trans theories
  • STS
  • Environmental health justice
  • Industrial heritage and the politics of decarbonisation
  • Teesside

Publications

Journal Article