Dr Sophia Maalsen
People_

Dr Sophia Maalsen

Senior Lecturer in Urbanism
Dr Sophia Maalsen

Sophia Maalsen is an ARC DECRA Fellow and senior lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at the University of Sydney. She is currently researching how the translation of computational logics and technologies is being applied to ‘hack housing' and address issues of housing affordability and innovation, as well as looking at the potential role of technologies in tenant advocacy. Her research is predominantly situated at the intersection of the digital and material across urban spaces and governance, housing, and feminism, with particular interest in the digital mediation and reconfiguration of relationships across these spaces.

Project titleResearch student
Urban Interiors and social media: A methodology exploration for interior architectsTracy HUANG
The promises of digital engagement platforms: Towards an urban theory of moral planningBenai PHAM

Selected publications

Publications

Books

Book Chapters

  • Humphry, J., Maalsen, S., Gangneux, J., Chesher, C., Hanchard, M., Joss, S., Merrington, P., Wessels, B. (2022). The Design and Public Imaginaries of Smart Street Furniture. In Susan Flynn (Eds.), Equality in the City: Imaginaries of the Smart Future, (pp. 127-148). Bristol, UK; Chicago, U.S.A: Intellect. [More Information]
  • Maalsen, S., McLean, J. (2020). Cultural Turn. In Audrey Kobayashi (Eds.), International Encyclopedia of Human Geography, (pp. 117-121). London: Elsevier. [More Information]
  • McLean, J., Maalsen, S., McNamara, N. (2020). Doing Gender in the Digital: Feminist geographic methods changing research? In Anindita Datta, Peter Hopkins, Lynda Johnston, Elizabeth Olson, Joseli Maria Sil (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Gender and Feminist Geographies, (pp. 467-475). Abingdon: Routledge. [More Information]

Journals

  • Maalsen, S. (2024). Digital geographies 1: Reality bytes. Progress in Human Geography, 48(6), 912-921. [More Information]
  • Maalsen, S. (2024). Home in cybersymbiosis: making home with digital oddkin. Information, Communication and Society. [More Information]
  • White, T., Rogers, D., Maalsen, S. (2024). Housing disruptions: Six conceptual entry points for analysing the digital transformation of housing and home. Digital Geography and Society, 7(December 2024, 100109). [More Information]

Conferences

  • Ferng, J., Maalsen, S. (2018). Settlement Communities: Projecting Affordable Housing for Refugees in Footscray, Melbourne. Association for the Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA), Denver: ACSA Press.

Magazine / Newspaper Articles

  • McGuirk, P., Goh, L., Dowling, R., Maalsen, S., Baker, T. (2023). Creative bureaucracy is possible. Here are 3 things cities do to foster innovative local government. The Conversation, Published online: 1 Dec 2023.
  • Humphry, J., Chesher, C., Maalsen, S. (2021). Smart street furniture in Australia: a public service or surveillance and advertising tool? The Conversation. [More Information]

Report

  • Wessels, B., Humphry, J., Gangneux, J., Hanchard, M., Chesher, C., Joss, S., Maalsen, S., Merrington, P., Sadowski, J., Dowling, R., Goggin, G., Horst, H. (2020). Smart Publics: Public Perceptions of Smart Street Furniture in London and Glasgow: insights for Policy and Practice. Sydney: The University of Sydney and The University of Glasgow. [More Information]
  • Gurran, N., Pill, M., Maalsen, S., Alizadeh, T., Shrestha, P. (2019). Informal accommodation and vulnerable households in metropolitan Sydney: Scale, drivers and policy responses.

2024

  • Maalsen, S. (2024). Digital geographies 1: Reality bytes. Progress in Human Geography, 48(6), 912-921. [More Information]
  • Maalsen, S. (2024). Home in cybersymbiosis: making home with digital oddkin. Information, Communication and Society. [More Information]
  • White, T., Rogers, D., Maalsen, S. (2024). Housing disruptions: Six conceptual entry points for analysing the digital transformation of housing and home. Digital Geography and Society, 7(December 2024, 100109). [More Information]

2023

  • Maalsen, S. (2023). Algorithmic epistemologies and methodologies: Algorithmic harm, algorithmic care and situated algorithmic knowledges. Progress in Human Geography, 47(2), 197-214. [More Information]
  • McGuirk, P., Goh, L., Dowling, R., Maalsen, S., Baker, T. (2023). Creative bureaucracy is possible. Here are 3 things cities do to foster innovative local government. The Conversation, Published online: 1 Dec 2023.
  • Chesher, C., Hanchard, M., Humphry, J., Merrington, P., Gangneux, J., Joss, S., Maalsen, S., Wessels, B. (2023). Discovering smart: Early encounters and negotiations with smart street furniture in London and Glasgow. Digital Geography and Society, 4(100055). [More Information]

2022

  • McLean, J., Maalsen, S., Lake, L. (2022). Digital (un)sustainability at an urban university in Sydney, Australia. Cities, 127. [More Information]
  • Maalsen, S., Gurran, N. (2022). Finding home online? The Digitalization of share housing and the making of home through absence. Housing, Theory and Society, 39(4), 1-19. [More Information]
  • Maalsen, S., Shrestha, P., Gurran, N. (2022). Informal housing practices in the global north: digital technologies, methods, and ethics. International Journal of Housing Policy, 22(1), 1-9. [More Information]

2021

  • Gurran, N., Pill, M., Maalsen, S. (2021). Hidden homes? Uncovering Sydney's informal housing market. Urban Studies, 58, 1712-1731. [More Information]
  • Dowling, R., Maalsen, S., Sadowski, J., McGuirk, P. (2021). How smart cities are made: A priori, ad hoc and post hoc drivers of smart city implementation in Sydney, Australia. Urban Studies, 58(16), 3299-3315. [More Information]
  • Shrestha, P., Gurran, N., Maalsen, S. (2021). Informal housing practices. International Journal of Housing Policy, 21(2), 157-168. [More Information]

2020

  • Maalsen, S. (2020). 'Generation Share': digitalized geographies of shared housing. Social and Cultural Geography, 21(1), 105-113. [More Information]
  • Dowling, R., Maalsen, S., Emmanuel, L., Wolifson, P. (2020). Affordable housing in innovation-led employment strategies. Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute Final Report, 333, 1-50. [More Information]
  • Perng, S., Maalsen, S. (2020). Civic Infrastructure and the Appropriation of the Corporate Smart City. Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 110(2), 507-515. [More Information]

2019

  • McLean, J., Maalsen, S., Prebble, S. (2019). A feminist perspective on digital geographies: activism, affect and emotion, and gendered human-technology relations in Australia. Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 26(5), 740-761. [More Information]
  • McLean, J., Maalsen, S. (2019). Disrupting Sexism and Sexualities Online? Gender, Activism and Digital Spaces. In Catherine J. Nash, Andrew Gorman-Murray (Eds.), The Geographies of Digital Sexuality, (pp. 183-202). Singapore: Palgrave Macmillan. [More Information]
  • Maalsen, S. (2019). I cannot afford to live alone in this city and I enjoy the company of others: why people are share housing in Sydney. Australian Geographer, 50(3), 315-332. [More Information]

2018

  • Perng, S., Maalsen, S. (2018). Crafting code: gender, coding and spatial hybridity in the events of PyLadies Dublin. In Susan Luckman, Nicola Thomas (Eds.), Craft Economies, (pp. 223-232). London: Bloomsbury Academic. [More Information]
  • Dowling, R., McGuirk, P., Maalsen, S. (2018). Multiscalar governance of urban energy transitions in Australia: The cases of Sydney and Melbourne. Energy Research & Social Science, 44, 260-267. [More Information]
  • Maalsen, S., Mclean, J. (2018). Record collections as musical archives: Gender, record collecting, and whose music is heard. Journal of Material Culture, 23(1), 39-57. [More Information]

2017

  • Mclean, J., Maalsen, S. (2017). 'We Don't want it to be like that for her again': gendered leadership and online feminism in Australian politics and planning. Australian Planner, 54(1), 24-32. [More Information]
  • Kent, J., Dowling, R., Maalsen, S. (2017). Catalysts for transport transitions: Bridging the gap between disruptions and change. Journal of Transport Geography, 60, 200-207. [More Information]

2016

  • Maalsen, S. (2016). Book Review: Reformatted: Code, Networks, and the Transformation of the Music Industry. Cultural Geographies, 23(1), 173-174.
  • Mclean, J., Maalsen, S. (2016). Case Study: From #destroythejoint to far-reaching digital activism - Feminist revitalization stemming from social media and reaching beyond. In Eric Gordon and Paul Mihailidis (Eds.), Civic Media: Technology, Design, Practice, (pp. 327-331). Cambridge: MIT Press.
  • Maalsen, S., Mclean, J. (2016). Digging up Unearthed down-under: a hybrid geography of a musical space that essentialises gender and place. Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 23(3), 418-434. [More Information]

2013

  • Mclean, J., Maalsen, S. (2013). Destroying the Joint and Dying of Shame? A Geography of Revitalised Feminism in Social Media and Beyond. Geographical Research, 51(3), 243-256. [More Information]

Selected Grants

2024

  • Rental vulnerability in Australia, Troy L, Martin C, Maalsen S, Buckle C, Australian Research Council (ARC)/Linkage Projects (LP)
  • Implications of data hunger in housing: protecting Australian renters, Maalsen S, Rogers D, Humphry J, Wolifson P, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute Ltd (AHURI)/National Housing Research Program - Research Projects

2023

  • Algorithmic Carbon governance: Climate, Computation and Cities, Maalsen S, The Henry Halloran Trust/Research Seminar and Publication Scheme