John is Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex and an Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Leadership Fellow in Conflict, Crime and Security. John works on the sociology of disasters, emergencies, and existential threat. He also works on the sociology of education with reference to equity, race, class, Higher Education, Vocational Education and Adult Education. John is the author of the monograph “Competence Based Education and Training (CBET) and the end of human learning: the existential threat of competency” (Palgrave, 2017) and is a Co-Investigator on the EPSRC “Chatty Factories” project where he is analysing robot / human skill formation in the factories of the future.