Dorothy Sutherland Olsen

Dorothy Sutherland Olsen is currently working as a senior researcher at NIFU, where she studies adult learning and innovation. She is particularly interested in using theories of learning to better understand innovation and technological development. She is currently working on a project studying the relationship between learning and innovation in firms and another project assessing the requirements for new competence in energy sector. She has recently participated in several international projects on the social development of sustainable technology. Dorothy's main focus is on qualitative work and she has extensive experience with case studies and interview techniques and workshops as well as analysis of policy documents. Previously Dorothy worked in business, analysing and managing technological change in firms (mainly ICT). She gained a PhD at the University of Oslo, in the Faculty of Educational Science, with a period spent at the Science & Technology Policy Research Unit at the University of Sussex (SPRU) where she studied learning in research teams working on nanotechnology. She also has a European masters in Science, Society & Technology (ESST) from the University of Oslo and the University of Strasbourg. Dorothy is originally from Scotland, her native language is English, but she is also fluent in Scandinavian languages.

Halla Bjørk Holmarsdottir