I graduated from Reading University, UK, with an undergraduate degree and PhD in Geography. Since completing my PhD in 1983 I have taught at universities in England, the United States, Guyana and Canada and conducted research in the fields of geography, urban studies, development studies and women’s studies.

I am a Professor, appointed in both the Department of Social Science, where I teach in the Urban Studies Program, and the School of Women’s Studies. I am also a member of the Graduate Programmes in Geography and Development Studies. I regularly supervise both MA and Ph.D. students in all these programmes.

My research interests focus on issues of feminist geographies of gender, race and sexuality, particularly as they pertain to the global south, and specifically Guyana. In addition to my work in Guyana I also have long standing interests in urban based research on women in cities; on whiteness and on developing anti-racist practices in Geography; and feminist methodologies, particularly in terms of the work these do in  transnational feminist praxis.

I have been conducting research in Guyana for nearly three decades. I have worked with the Guyanese women’s organisation Red Thread on a variety of topics including the impact of structural adjustment on women and households, domestic violence, women’s reproductive health, sex work, trafficking and most recently young adults and sexualities. These research projects have resulted in a team of researchers within Red Thread who have used their skills to conduct their own research as well as to gain employment in research conducted by various agencies and individuals in the country.

I am an active supervisor and mentor and many postgraduates have accompanied me on research trips to Guyana (Amrita Persaud, Charulata Prasada, Nancy Kingsbury, Jennifer Johnson, Roxanne Richardson, Katherine Topelko, Kate Nowak, Shannon Gurevitch, Leeann Townsend, Andy Inkster, Katie MacDonald, Michelle Bobala) and England (Liz Millward) and to conferences in Canada, the USA and Australia (Allyson Mitchell, Katherine McKittrick, Sue Frohlick, Mary Ebos, Abhar Hussain, Colette Murray, Laura Shillington, Leeann Townsend).

I have sat on a number of editorial boards of academic journals including having been the Managing Editor of Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography (2002-2008), a founding editor of Social and Cultural Geography (1998-2002) and book review editor of Antipode (1992-1995). I currently serve on the editorial boards of the journals Gender, Place and Culture, Social and Cultural Geography, The Canadian Geographer and the Journal of Latin American Geography and Gender. Most recently I have joined the International Advisory Board of Signs.

Most recently I have published:

• a chapter “Gender, Race, Sexuality” in the Sage Handbook of Social Geography;
• two entries – “Whiteness” and “Gender in Cities” – in the International Encyclopaedia of Geography;
• had an article reprinted – Kobayashi,A. and Peake, L. (1994) Unnatural discourse: Race and Gender in Geography. Gender, Place and Culture 1: 225-243, reprinted in Borghi, R. and Rondinonede, A. (eds) A Reader in Gender and Geography (in Italian);
• had a second article reprinted - Kofman, E. and Peake, L. (1990) Into the 1990s: a gendered agenda for political geography, Political Geography Quarterly9(4): 313-336, reprinted in John A. and  Mamadouh, V. (eds) Contemporary Foundations of  Space and Place – Politics: Critical Essays in Human Geography  (Ashgate Publishing).
• Peake, L. (2010) “The lost Amerindian girls, the tooth fairy and the Whore of Babylon”, Department of Geography, University of Reading, Working Paper No. 190 (26pp).
• Mullings, B.,., Warner, M Peake, L (2010) 'Fear and Loathing in Haiti: Race and the Politics of Humanitarian Dispossession'. ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies
• Peake, L. ( 2010) “Feminist and quantitative? Measuring the extent of domestic violence in Georgetown, Guyana.” Treballs de la Societat Catalana de Geografia. 66, pp. 133-148.
• Peake, L.(2011)  “In, out and unspeakably about; taking social geography beyond an Anglo-American positionality”  Social and Cultural Geography 12 (7): 757-773.

Forthcoming publications: 

Peake, L., Rieker, M (eds) (forthcoming) Rethinking Feminist Interventions into the Urban (London: Routledge

Peake, L. (forthcoming) “Heteronormativity” Sharpe, J., Kuus, M., and Dodds, K. (eds) Companion to Critical Geopolitics. (Ashgate Publishing)

Peake,L. and Sheppard, E. (forthcoming) “USA and Anglo-Canada” Lawrence Berg and Ulrich Best (eds) Placing Critical Geography: International Histories of Critical Geographies (Ashgate Publishing)