I completed my PhD in 2020 in which I compared the knowledge that teachers draw on across secondary history, geography and physics when making planning and teaching decisions.  I argued that teachers are more actively engaged in the recontextualisation of academic disciplines into school subjects than is sometimes suggested in the literature.  

Previous projects have included Nuffield-funded research into history teaching in England and research funded by the Carnegie Council into teaching history in divided societies (focusing on Northern Ireland).  

More recently I have conducted research with Julia Huber into the stories of British history that students from different ethnic groups tell.  Following a six month visit to Victoria University in Wellington as a visiting scholar, I have also completed research with Professor Mark Sheehan into the way that young people interact with museum exhibitions about the First Work War in England and New Zealand.

My current interests include the potential role of history education in fostering a deeper understanding of the current climate crisis and the relationship between humans and the natural world, as well as a more general interest in supporting teachers to respond to the current planetary crisis and related sustainability challenges in meaningful and constructive ways. I am currently involved with two funded research projects: a CTTR funded project exploring secondary PGCE students' engagement in sustainability issues through their teaching across different subjects and a UCL Grand Challenges funded project exploring the variation in secondary schools' engagement in climate change and sustainability education in partnership with UCL's Climate Action Unit.  I am also leading an unfunded project, Teach Climate History, with colleagues from UCL and the University of Bristol with a working group of primary and secondary history education colleagues from schools and universities across England.