Dr Emma Katz

Profile

Biography

Dr Emma Katz is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost experts in her area of study – how coercive control, a severe form of domestic abuse, impacts on children and young people.

Dr Katz’s main themes in this area are the harms that father-perpetrated coercive control causes to children and mothers, as well as children’s and mothers’ resistance and recovery in the face of coercive control. These themes are explored in her book Coercive Control in Mothers’ and Children’s Lives (Oxford University Press, 2022) – see below.

Dr Katz arrived at Edge Hill following a period as Associate Professor in Sociology at Durham University.

Research distinctions

• Internationally, Dr Katz’s research has been cited in the anti-domestic violence policies of a number of governments. Her research is extensively used by organisations and practitioners at a global level.
• Due to its global reach, Katz’s research was chosen in REF2021 to be one of her institution’s REF Impact Case Studies.
• Dr Katz uses her social media presence, including her popular platform on Substack, to communicate her research to the public. In addition to her Substack account, she also has substantial followings accross Instagram, LinkedIn, Threads and Bluesky.
• Dr Katz won the 2022 Clear Path UK ‘Cycle Breaker’ Award for the person or organisation who has had the biggest impact nationally on changing misconceptions around abuse.
• Dr Katz won the Wiley Prize for Best Paper published in Child Abuse Review 2015-18, and the 2016 Corinna Seith Prize awarded by Women Against Violence Europe ‘WAVE’.
• Dr Katz’s work is highly read. For example, her 2020 article in the journal Child Abuse Review has had more than 75,000 reads. Its Altmetric Score is in the top 0.1% of all 25 million articles worldwide tracked by Altmetric. Her 2022 book is available as an audiobook due to high public interest in the work.
   

Dr Emma Katz can be contacted at [email protected] for:

• invitations to speak via the media and at conferences and events
• potential PhD supervision on domestic violence and abuse or other gender-based violence issues

Education and career history

• Dr Katz studied at the University of Nottingham, completing an ESRC-funded PhD. Prior to this, she completed an MA Research Methods (Distinction) and a BA (Hons) Sociology (First Class).
• Prior to joining Edge Hill University in December 2023, Dr Katz was an Associate Professor in Sociology at Durham University (2023) and a Senior Lecturer in Childhood and Youth at Liverpool Hope University (2013-2022). 
• At Liverpool Hope University, Dr Katz won 3 awards for her teaching, as voted for by students.
• Dr Katz has been appointed as external examiner for PhD theses and Masters dissertations in the UK and internationally, including at the University of Bristol, UK and University of Fort Hare, South Africa.
• During her career, Dr Katz has spearheaded her institution’s REF2021 submission to the Social Work and Social Policy Unit of Assessment, and held the role of Deputy Chair of the Board of Examiners in her department. 

Book

• Katz, Emma (2022) Coercive Control in Children’s and Mothers’ Lives. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Praise for the book: Amidst the failure of police, courts and child welfare to hold male domestic abuse perpetrators accountable, Emma Katz follows fifteen families through their harrowing years of abuse and recovery. In a pioneering work that shows that children are subjected to the same abuse tactics as their mothers, she applies the new paradigm of coercive control to amazing effect, evoking the voices of women and children to identify the multiple forms of harm inflicted, how children resist, and how some women break free. This book will change how we understand and respond to children’s experience of domestic abuse. – Professor Evan Stark.

Current research

• Co-investigator on Coercive Control and Transforming Practices of Power: Understanding the Experiences and Needs of Child Victims-Survivors (CAPUCS). Principal Investigator: Professor Merja Laitinen. Funded by the Research Council of Finland. 2023-2027.

Expert advisory work

• Expert consultant to Reem Alsalem: UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women and girls. Consulted on report A/HRC/53/36: Custody, violence against women and violence against children (2023).
• Invited presentations to French government ministers in 2023 about the impacts of coercive control on children and families.
• Member of Expert Advisory Panel for the Domestic Abuse Policy Guidance for UK Universities, produced by the HARM Network/Research England. Project shortlisted for 2022 Times Higher Education Awards.

Monitoring and evaluations

• Monitoring and evaluation of ‘Survivors to Thrivers’ project at charity The First Step – completed 2019.

Media and presentations

• Dr Katz has been featured as a domestic abuse expert in broadcast and print media including the Financial Times, Newsweek, NBC News, Ms Magazine, Glamour, i News, CBC News, BBC Radio 5 Live, BBC Radio 4, and ITV News.
• Dr Katz has delivered keynotes and invited presentations to audiences in countries including Singapore, Brazil, France, Finland, Denmark, Germany, Portugal, Ireland, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
• In the United Kingdom, she has given invited presentations at the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, and invited seminars for the Home Office and the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s Office.
• From 2020-2022, she was a consultant to Channel 4’s television soap opera Hollyoaks, offering guidence on their domestic abuse related storyline.

Publications

Authored book

• Katz, Emma (2022). Coercive Control in Children’s and Mothers’ Lives. New York: Oxford University Press.

Journal Articles

• Dalgarno, Elizabeth, Katz, Emma, Ayeb-Karlsson, Sonja, Barnett, Adrienne, Motosi, Paola, & Verma, Arpana (2024). ‘Swim, swim and die at the beach’: family court and perpetrator induced trauma (CPIT) experiences of mothers in Brazil. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law 46(1): 11.
• Nikupeteri, Anna, Katz, Emma & Laitinen, Merja (2021). Coercive control and technology-facilitated parental stalking in children’s and young people’s lives. Journal of Gender-Based Violence 5(3): 395.
• Katz, Emma, Nikupeteri, Anna & Laitinen, Merja (2020). When Coercive Control Continues to Harm Children: Post‐Separation Fathering, Stalking and Domestic Violence. Child Abuse Review 29(4): 310.
• Katz, Emma (2019). Coercive Control, Domestic Violence, and a Five-Factor Framework: Five Factors That Influence Closeness, Distance, and Strain in Mother–Child Relationships. Violence Against Women 25(15): 1829.
• Radford, Lorraine, Lombard, Nancy, Meinck, Franziska, Katz, Emma & Mahati, Stanford Taonatose (2017). Researching violence with children: experiences and lessons from the UK and South Africa. Families, Relationships and Societies 6(2): 239.
• Katz, Emma (2016). Beyond the Physical Incident Model: How Children Living with Domestic Violence are Harmed By and Resist Regimes of Coercive Control. Child Abuse Review 25(1): 46.
• Katz, Emma (2015). Recovery-Promoters: Ways in which Children and Mothers Support One Another’s Recoveries from Domestic Violence. British Journal of Social Work 45(suppl 1): i153.
• Katz, Emma (2013). Domestic Violence, Children’s Agency and Mother-Child Relationships: Towards a More Advanced Model. Children & Society 29(1): 69.

• Coercive Control in Children's and Mothers' Lives
• When Coercive Control Continues to Harm Children
• Coercive control and technology-facilitated parental stalking in children’s and young people’s lives
• 'Swim, swim and die at the beach’