We are the ‘Understanding Digital Justice Journeys’ research team.
Expand the sections to read a summary of our research interests and see what we look like!
We have a particular focus on socio-legal research and a strong sense of the importance of access to justice.
Naomi joined Kent Law School in October 2022. Previously, she was a Professor of Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Westminster, where she served as Research Director. Prior to that she was at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies in Oxford. Professor Creutzfeldt is a member of common room at Wolfson College, Oxford, and an affiliate researcher at the Max-Plank Institute for Legal History and Theory in Frankfurt.
Her research can be divided into three strands under the umbrella of access to civil and administrative justice systems: (1) ADR and Ombudsmen; (2) digitalisation and vulnerabilities; and (3) health-justice partnerships. She has a special interest in how people who use the justice system in different countries access it, navigate it and perceive it, and why some people don’t use it at all, and what this means for theorising and delivering justice.
Research Associate
Tracey studied Law at the University of Kent and Criminology at Cambridge University before beginning her academic career as a lecturer in law at the University of Leicester.
After completing her PhD on the governance of street homelessness in Canterbury, Tracey began her career as a researcher in the broad areas of housing, homelessness, and governance. In 2022, Tracey was recruited as a Research Fellow at the University of Southampton on the Tackling Housing Debt and Eviction project funded by Abrdn Financial Fairness Trust. This research worked with people with lived experience of housing debt and the threat of home loss, to better understand the extent to which they can access sources of help and advice.
Since November 2024, Tracey has been working with Naomi and Sophia on the Digital Justice project.
Research Associate
Sophia holds a BSc (Hons) in Physics and a PGDip in International Relations & Security Studies, both from the University of Reading. In 2017, she joined Keele University to study, gaining an MA in International Relations, MRes in Social Science Research Methods, and finally her PhD in Law, focusing on the relationship between migrant women with No Recourse to Public Funds (NRPF) and the state and third-sector resistance to NRPF.
Her research experience is situated within an interdisciplinary setting, encompassing socio-legal work and International Relations, with a focus on migration. During the COVID-19 lockdowns, she worked as a researcher at her local Citizens Advice (SNSCA) to understand how best to access clients with limited digital literacy and language barriers. She has also conducted research with international students, employing creative methods to gain insight into their educational experiences under lockdown conditions.