Karen Lai

Research interests

• Geographies of money and finance
• International financial centre
• Fintech and digital economies
• Global production/financial networks
• Global cities and world city networks
• Markets and varieties of capitalism/variegated capitalism
• Political economy and development in Asia

I am an economic geographer with research expertise on financial geography, and am currently Associate Professor at the Department of Geography, Durham University (UK). My research interests include geographies of money and finance, global cities, FinTech, service sectors and market formation, focusing particularly on issues of financialisation, knowledge networks, and financial centre development.

I received my Bachelor and Master degrees in Geography from the National University of Singapore, and completed my PhD in Economic Geography at the University of Nottingham (UK). Previously, I was based at the National University of Singapore and University of British Columbia (Canada).

I am currently working on two projects regarding the global financial networks of investment banks and law firms, and the impacts of FinTech on financial centres and consumer practices. I am a founding member and executive committee member of the Global Network on Financial Geography (FinGeo) and serve on the executive committee of the Economic Geography Research Group (EGRG) of the Royal Geographical Society (with Institute of British Geographers). I am also on the journal editorial boards of Geoforum and Geography Compass (Economic section), and the international advisory board of the Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography.

Outside of work, I enjoy gardening, crochet, Chinese calligraphy and photography.