Dr Emma Lees is a social scientist and law student (LPAB, NSW). She completed her doctoral thesis through the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Sydney and is currently an Honorary Associate with the Work and Organisational Studies Discipline. Her research interests include work, employment, and job quality, sociology of professions and professional ethics, cooperative enterprises, economic democracy, diverse economies, and the social and solidarity economy. Her PhD thesis traced the evolution of the Catalan cooperative movement and the solidarity economy between the years 1975 and 2019. It drew on interviews with professionals and technicians from worker cooperatives located in Barcelona, including legal- finance- and organisation professionals, social scientists, economists, architects and urban planners, policymakers, journalists and communications professionals, software and multimedia designers, and creative practitioners and educators.

Building on her doctoral research, Emma’s current research extends her lines of enquiry to investigate professionals’ and technicians' activities in Australia. She is a member of the Australian Sociological Society (TASA), the Community Economies Research Network (CERN), the Sydney Employment Relations Research Group (SEERG), the Co-operatives Research Group, and she collaborates on projects with the Co-op Federation.