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Professor Elizabeth Stokoe

Professor and Academic Director of Impact

About

Elizabeth Stokoe HonFBPsS joined the Department of Psychological and Behavioural Science in January 2023. Prior to this, she was Professor of Social Interaction in the Discourse and Rhetoric Group at Loughborough University where she was also Associate Pro Vice-Chancellor for REF2021. She has been Academic Director of Impact at LSE since January 2024.

Elizabeth’s research is in conversation analysis, focused on understanding how social interaction works in settings from first dates to medicine and healthcare; from mediation to police crisis negotiation and emergency service calls, and from sales encounters to interaction in "SaaS" (Software as a Service) platforms and conversational user interfaces. The common thread in her work is the identification of effective and less effective interactional practices and their impact on the outcome of conversational encounters. She has published over 160 research outputs, including several co-authored books (Discourse and Identity, 2006, Conversation and Gender, 2011, Discursive Psychology: Classic and Contemporary Issues, 2016; Crisis Talk: Negotiating with Individuals in Crisis, 2022). Her new co-authored book is Categories in Social Interaction (Routledge, 2025) co-authored with Dr Kevin Whitehead and Prof Geoff Raymond (both UCSB).

Awards

  • Wired Innovation Fellow
  • Honorary Fellow of the British Psychological Society

Expertise

Conversation analysis, social interaction, human communication, membership categorization, communication training, conversation design, science communication