Kirsty has a background in Sociology, with a joint honours degree in Sociology with Gender Studies from Edinburgh University and a PhD in Sociology from James Cook University, Australia. She is the theme leader for our Society, Institutions and Governance sub-group of the Social, Economic and Geographical Sciences group at The James Hutton Institute. She is one of the of the initial cohort for the newly established Young Academy of Scotland. Her current research interest include: governance, particularly public and stakeholder participation in environmental policy making and implementation. She has an associated interest in the use of 'tools' as deliberative boundary objects in decision making and evaluation processes. She generally favours mixed qualitative methods such as interviews, focus groups and participant observation