When not on holiday ...

My research takes a critical realist approach to cultural reproduction and social justice - I am particularly interested in resuscitating theory-building in these domains. In my forthcoming book ‘Transmission of Colonial Values’ (Routledge, 2022), I examine the microcosm of power dynamics within English Literature at the secondary education level, and from this establish a meta-theory of social consent which I dubbed the ‘hegemonies of knowledge’. This publication is part one of a trilogy of ideas which seeks to recentre sociology from its core of ‘structure-agency’ onto one of ‘hegemonic consent’, and culminate in a ‘theory of activism’, which aspires to ground the social sciences as a tool for change. ​

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In 2021, I am Principal Investigator on three actively funded projects: (i) Sugarless Green (a health education intervention research programme), which is funded by Research England, QR Strategic Priorities Fund (ii) Reading for Cultural Meaning (a literary project funded by UKLA Literacy Association), and (iii) Gardening & Gums (a knowledge exchange health communication project about oral care, funded by The Cathedrals Group). Since November 2019, in addition to the grants above, I was awarded three British Academy Grants (UK-Australia Knowledge Frontiers Forum, Brisbane, 2019), and secured an additional cross-institutional collaborative research bid of £40,000 from The Cathedrals Group for a knowledge exchange project, 'Communiversity'. 

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While undertaking my PhD (2017) at the Australian National University, I completed a Visiting Fellowship at the University of Oxford, Department for Education, Centre for Comparative and International Education (2015). Concomitantly, my 2015 publication ‘Desperate Shadows of Belonging’ inspired change within the secondary education curriculum in New South Wales, Australia and was shortlisted by the Australian Educational Researcher journal for their Best Paper Award in that year. In 2018, I secured an Erasmus Visiting Fellowship at the University of Tampere, Finland. In 2020, I was shortlisted for a university-wide 'Academic Lecturer Award' by the Students' Union and appointed as the 'Student Success Coordinator' to improve student outcomes in line with the business strategy for the Education Studies Programme at the University of Roehampton.