Olli Pyyhtinen (PI) | PhD, docent (sociology)
Olli Pyyhtinen (PI) is Professor of Sociology at Tampere University, Finland, and the founder of Relational Studies Hub. His research intersects social theory, philosophy, science and technology studies, economic sociology, and the study of art, and he is the author of for example More-than-Human Sociology (2015), The Gift and Its Paradoxes (2014), The Simmelian Legacy: A Science of Relations (2018) and Simmel and the Social (2010), and co-author of Disruptive Tourism and its Untidy Guests (2014) and Tervetuloa jäteyhteiskuntaan! (2019; ‘Welcome to the Society of Waste!’).
Email: olli.pyyhtinen@tuni.fi
Teemu Loikkanen | MSocSc [thesis defended, degree pending] (Sociology)
Teemu Loikkanen joined the DECAY project in May 2026 as Researcher. Later that month Teemu defended his doctoral thesis at the University of Lapland on waste citizenship in the circular economy. His research explores waste, circular economy, and environmental governance, with a particular focus on waste citizenship, material infrastructures and the societal transformations associated with sustainability transitions. At DECAY, he contributes expertise especially on the social and political dimensions of wasting, recycling and circular economy practices.
Previous members:
Taru Lehtokunnas | PhD (Sociology)
Taru was Postdoctoral Research Fellow at DECAY. Her background is in sociology, and her theoretical interests include STS, practice theory and posthumanist theory. Taru’s research in DECAY explored how everyday practices, technologies and non-human animals collectively shape our understandings of the circular economy and our relationship with waste. In Spring 2026 left the DECAY project to join the Umeå University in Sweden.
Niina Uusitalo | PhD (Media and communication)
Niina was Postdoctoral Research Fellow at DECAY. Her background is in media and communication studies. Her previous research has included studying media users’ lifeworlds, the governance of attention in online settings and the aesthetics of climate change. Niina’s theoretical interests lie in eco-philosophy, governance studies and the politics of aesthetics. Her work process is visual, as she creates photography and video projects in order to reinterpret and visualize her research data and results. She contributed to the project especially through publications and doing research on styrofoam as multispecies ethnography on non-human animals (dogs) sensing waste.
Collaborators:
- Prof. Hervé Corvellec (Lund University, Sweden)
- Prof. Gay Hawkins (Western Sydney University, Australia)
- Prof. Tora Holmberg (Uppsala University, Sweden)
- Prof. Pekka Jokinen (Tampere University, Finland)
- Prof. Turo-Kimmo Lehtonen (Tampere University, Finland)
- Prof. Elina Närvänen (Tampere University, Finland)
- Prof. Sarah Pink (Monash University, Australia)
- Prof. Peeter Selg (Tallinn University, Estonia)
- Prof. Jarno Valkonen (University of Lapland, Finland)
- Prof. Steve Woolgar (Linköping University, Sweden)
