Dr John Harvey

John Harvey is an Associate Professor based in N/LAB at the University of Nottingham. He specialises in the study of consumer behaviour. His research focuses on the use of aggregated behavioural data (such as loyalty card transactions, telecommunications records, and social network data) to address social issues. 

John’s recent work has used these forms of proprietary data to examine problems such as food and nutritional security, diet-related disease, food waste, loneliness, deprivation, vulnerable migration, and the sustainability of food shopping behaviour. His work typically involves mixed methods, but has a particular emphasis on observational methods that examine digital footprints i.e. information that exists on the Internet as a result of our online activity. In short, questioning why we give so much of our private data to companies and expect that they do nothing prosocial with it in return.

John is working with Professor Alexa Spence and Professor James Goulding on the Data donation for climate action project. Meet our other Smart Data Research UK accelerator teams.