Dr Tess Osborne

I am a Lecturer in Human Geography and joined the School of Geography, Geology and the Environment at the University of Leicester in 2022. I am a digital and health geographer, and I explore the link between the application of digital technology (as a method and in everyday life) and questions of health and wellbeing, embodiment and mobilities in urban settings. Both areas have become increasingly important in recent years and stresses the importance of the digital world and our physical environment influences our health and wellbeing.

Dr. Tess Osborne’s research explores the intersection of digital technologies, health, and well-being, investigating how emerging tools reshape social experiences, emotions, and mobility. Her work is deeply interdisciplinary, integrating qualitative and quantitative methodologies to address complex societal challenges related to digital and embodied geographies. A key focus of her research is biosocial methodologies, including the use of wearable biosensing technologies to examine emotional responses to urban environments. As Principal Investigator of Biosocial Walking, Dr. Osborne has explored how migrants experience belonging and well-being during urban mobility, linking physical spaces with personal memory and social integration.

Her work also engages with virtual reality (VR) and digital methods to study how people interact with digital and physical environments. She has co-authored a leading guide on VR methods for researchers and contributed to debates on interviewing in virtual spaces, highlighting the renewed importance of location and embodiment in digital research. Dr. Osborne has also worked extensively on meaningful mobility, focusing on how movement and care routines shape well-being, particularly in later life. Her research in this area employs mobility tracking, rhythmanalysis, and participatory approaches to understand the links between mobility, health, and place.

I am interested in supervising postgraduate researchers in the following research areas:

• Digital geographies
• Digital technologies (including virtual reality)
• Emotional geographies
• Geographies of health and wellbeing
• Geographies of migration

Current PGRs

• Kathryn Adams - Modelling the Environmental (in)justices associated with Road Traffic Noise: A spatiotemporal analysis.
• Ikal Angelei - Dilemma in Ng'irerea: The Evolving Landscape of Turkana's Pastoralists.
• John Pateman - Articulating the impact of cultural programming in UK public libraries.
• Danielle Sheppard - Rural Super-Gentrification: An Investigation of Social Change within Three English Villages.

Completed PGRs

• Thomas Lowe - The Golden Years? Older adult mobility experiences and perceptions across the later life course in England.  
• Charlie Hewitt (2023) - Discovering the way: Automated Machine Learning improvement of path network data.

• GY1424 The Digital World [module lead]
• GY1422 Skills for Professional Geographies 
• GY2414 Research Methods and Design (with Dissertation) 
• GY3425 Critical Digital Geographies
• GY3419 Geographies of Health & Wellbeing [module lead]
• GY3418 Berlin Fieldcourse
• GY3420/GY3540 Dissertation
• GY7715/GY7411 Contemporary Critical Geographies

Digital Technologies; Virtual Reality and Health and Wellbeing.

Committees

• Chair of the Digital Geographies Research Group
• Committee Member for the Geographies of Health and Well-being Research Group

Memberships

• Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society with Institute of British Geographers (RGS-IBG).
• Member of the Koninklijk Nederlandsch Aardrijkskundig Genootschap [Royal Dutch Geographical Society] (KNAG).
• Member of the American Association of Geographers (AAG).
• Member of the International Ambiances Network.
• Member of the Memory Studies Association (MSA).