Dr Howard Davis is Senior Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice. He graduated in Philosophy and Politics from Oxford University in 1982 (taking his MA (Oxon) in 2009) and qualified as a social worker in 1987. As a social worker he completed an MA in Crime, Deviance and Social Policy from Lancaster University in 1991 and moved into a full time academic career in 1999. Following his professional social work practice in the child protection, disaster and HIV/AIDS fields he has a longstanding research interest in the origins of, impact of, and response to trauma and loss. He completed a PhD in Disaster Management and Response from Lancaster University in 2009. He has authored and co-authored research reports, book chapters and articles for academic journals. His future interests lie in the criminological and political dimensions of ‘austerity’.  His recent interests include the role of ignorance in the origins and reproduction  on mass harm, austerity, and the neoliberal assault on the criminological imagination.