Stephen Healy is Associate Professor of Geography and Urban Studies at Western Sydney University and a school-based member of the Institute for Culture and Society. He is an award-winning teacher and author whose research draws on Marxian, feminist, and psychoanalytic theory to explore processes of social transformation.

His current research includes a three-year project co-led with Associate Professor Abby Mellick Lopes on climate change adaptation in the context of social housing. This work investigates innovative strategies to enhance climate resilience in vulnerable housing communities.

Healy’s recent work on the circular economy builds on an earlier Australian Research Council (ARC) project that examined manufacturing cultures in peri-urban and regional Australia. That project explored how local identities, skills, and practices shape sustainable production. Building on these insights, two subsequent ARC projects focused on the economies of waste and reuse. Drawing on perspectives from diverse economies, discard studies, and design, this research aimed to cultivate new understandings of social innovation and support more inclusive and just circular economy models.

He is co-author of Solidarity Cities: Encountering Racial Capitalism, Mapping Transformation (University of Minnesota Press, with Maliha Safri, Marianna Pavlovskaya, and Craig Borowiak) and Take Back the Economy: An Ethical Guide for Transforming Our Communities (with J.K. Gibson-Graham and Jenny Cameron). His work has been published in leading journals including Geoforum, Antipode, Emotion, Space and Society, Environment and Planning D, and the Annals of the American Association of Geographers.

Professor Healy serves as treasurer of the Community Economies Institute and is an associate editor of Rethinking Marxism. He also enjoys jiu-jitsu and is always happy to roll with anyone, anytime—and he likes dogs, even if he doesn’t currently have one.