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Last updated 22nd March 2023

John is an interdisciplinary social scientist with a background in sociology, human geography and latterly management. Before moving to the University of Huddersfield, he worked in the School of Geography and Planning at Cardiff University and for Cities Research Centre at UWE: Bristol. Throughout this period, John's research interests revolved around 'sustainable communities' and 'sustainable food systems' - and he was involved in a number of ESRC and EU funded pojects, including Welfare Quality and Dialrel. 

John's current research interests revolve around sustainable food systems, religious food markets, and refugee (food) entrepreneuers. He has been commissioned by NGOs, local authorities, and food certification bodies in the UK and beyond, and has completed work funded by BA/Leverhulme, among others. The question driving much of his research is: What can food tell us about people, place and politics? John holds an ESRC funded PhD in Public Policy and his work continues to have an underlying policy focus.

Before he bacame an academic, John worked for Oxfam in fair trade for a number of years. His teaching has a specific focus on food system sustainability, circular economy, and environmental management/ policy at both UG and PG level. John is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA) and the Norbert Elias Foundation (for a complete list of John's talks before 2014 see www.johnlever.com.)