Research and Commentary

Roger Patulny is a Professor of Sociology at Hong Kong Baptist University. He researches on topics around topics around loneliness, social isolation, the sociology of emotions, emotion management, social capital, social inclusion and connection, unemployment and the future of work, social mix in public housing, gendered social networks, volunteering, trust, and digital interaction.

Publications and Media

Roger has published over 100 academic publications, including 3 books, 3 special editions, 50 peer-reviewed journal articles, 21 book chapters/discussion papers, 7 refereed conference papers, 14 social policy reports, and 10 articles for The Conversation. He has over 2,400 citations in Google Scholar, with an h-index of 28 and i10-index of 57. His research has been reported in various news outlets including: The Guardian, The Australian, ABC, SBS, BBC, The New Daily, The Australian Women’s Weekly, News.com, Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Daily Telegraph, and Xinhua, and on TV on Chanel 10’s The Project. His 10 articles written for The Conversation have attracted over 483,000 reads

Grants and Public Engagement

Roger has been a CI on various Australian Research Council (ARC) and other competitive grants that have attracted over $1.1 million in funding. These include the ARC Discovery 2009-11: ‘Poor Women and Lonely Men: Examining Gendered Social Inclusion and Connection in Australia’, the ARC Linkage 2015-17: ‘Who You Know or Where You Go? The Role of Formal and Informal Networks in Finding Employment and Maintaining Wellbeing’, and the ARC Discovery 2023-25 ‘How parents manage climate anxiety: coping and hoping for the whole family’. He has led several special editions, including ‘Emotions in Social Life and Social Policy’ (2012) for the Australian Journal of Social Issues, Sociology of Emotions (2 sections in 2015) for Emotion Review. He has also published recent edited collections on Emotions in Late Modernity (2019, Routledge) and Dystopian Emotions: Emotional Landscapes and Dark Futures (2021, Bristol University Press). Roger has served on the executive board of the Australian Sociological Association (TASA), leading the Public Sociology Portfolio (2020-22). He is a co-founder and co-convenor of the Contemporary Emotions Research Network (CERN), and co-founded the TASA Thematic Group on the Sociology of Emotions and Affect (SEA).