Obituary: Dr Stewart Russell, talented lecturer who was an expert in understanding what drives and inhibits environmentally sustainable energy systems

Published on Tuesday 11 October 2011 01:30

Born: 6 August, 1955, in Eastleigh, Hampshire. Died: 17 September, 2011, in Leven, Fife, aged 56

DR Stewart Russell was senior lecturer in Science Technology and Innovation Studies at the University of Edinburgh. He personified a new generation of interdisciplinary academics who crossed the boundary between natural and social sciences to constitute the newly emerging field of Science, Technology & Innovation Studies.

A Cambridge graduate in physical sciences, Stewart moved to Aston University, Technology Policy Unit, to study the social factors shaping our technological systems.

His PhD involved a meticulous empirical analysis of the limited progress of combined heat and power technology in the UK in comparison with its mainland counterparts, rooted in differences in policy systems.

This established two themes that remained at the centre of his academic career: analysing the diverse social, economic and political well as narrowly technical factors that influenced the design and deployment of technologies, and applying these insights and methodologies to the challenges of environmental sustainability through critical, policy oriented studies across a range of energy technologies.

From 1988 to 2006, he was lecturer and later senior lecturer in Science, Technology and Society at the University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia.

In 2006 Stewart joined the University of Edinburgh, where he played a key role in developing postgraduate programmes in Science, Technology and Innovation Studies and interdisciplinary research programmes in the area of energy and environment.

He was tireless in his support for colleagues in their work – always available for students wanting to explore some knotty analytical question.

He was keen to build links between other scholarly communities and with wider audiences.

He worked as a consultant to trade unions and community groups as well as to government, and at Edinburgh he developed an innovative Understanding Technology public lecture series with the National Museum of Scotland.

Stewart sought to live his life in a way consistent with his intellectual, political and environmental convictions.

For example, in the months before he died he and his partner Lorraine were planning to build a carbon neutral house for themselves.

One of the many sad aspects of his premature passing is that he never got the chance to see this project brought to fruition. PROF ROBIN WILLIAMS