Hello. I am a sociologist interested in work, culture, the sociology of time, futures, technology, and comparative sociology.

I recently received my DPhil in Sociology at the University of Oxford in 2025, where I was a John Swire Scholar at St. Antony’s College. I am currently a Lecturer (Assistant Professor equivalent) at the School of Management, University of Leicester in the UK.

My research examines the cultural foundation of recent transformations in work and technology. I am particularly interested in the cultural beliefs and norms around time, morals, and emotions that underpin these changes. In my doctoral dissertation, I focus on these values in the online freelancing labour market, also known as the global gig economy.

I am working on two lines of research. The first one examines the relationship between time, emergent labour regimes, and technological infrastructures. Forthcoming and working papers examine how workers make sense of and experience time scarcity, unstable time schedules, and workers’ imaginaries of futures. The second stream concerns more broadly the cultural and moral perceptions around ‘bad’ jobs, such as precarious or insecure work, and how these beliefs vary across national contexts.

My research has been published or is forthcoming in academic journals such as Sociology, The Sociological Review, among others. I primarily draw on interview and ethnographic data, but I also at times work on survey data in collaborative projects.

Prior to academia, I worked as a creative in multinational tech startups and a design studio. The letter ‘a’ in my last name, Loa, is silent.